


Rearview Mirror

by themus



Category: The OC
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Series, Season/Series 01, Threats of Violence, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-01
Updated: 2007-06-07
Packaged: 2019-02-23 04:42:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 49,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themus/pseuds/themus
Summary: 'Warning: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.'Ryan can let go of his past, but it won't let go of him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Season 1 between 'The Heights' and 'The Homecoming', ignoring 'The Perfect Couple'.

  
**Newport,  
Fall 2003**

 

Ryan kept his cool until they called his mom a slut.

_“What's your fucking problem, bitch?”_

As much as he could admit to himself that it was true, it was no less true that this spoiled kid, who lived in a twenty-room mansion and drove an Acura NSX to _school_ , had no right to say it.

_“Sissy.”_

He hit back then, putting his full weight behind the punch that knocked the boy out cold against the locker room floor.

_“Go back to the trailer and bang your mom, inbred.”_

He took another one down with a kick to the back of the knees . . .

_“. . . fucking trash . . .”_

. . . and then he was lost in the brawl, disjointed flashes of faces and limbs, caught up in the racing adrenaline, hitting everything and everyone.

And then there was pain, and he jolted back to reality as he rebounded from the mirrored wall, dropping to his knees on scattered shards of glass. The room was eerily silent, except for the echoing remnants of falling glass and his harsh rasping breaths. After a while the world came back into focus. Silken strands of blood laced his hands like cobwebs. The mosaic slivers on the floor refracted back a thousand pairs of eyes.

“What the hell is going on in here?” The coach's shout ricocheted around the room before being caught and suffocated by the sudden hush it induced. Ryan remained fascinated by the tendrils of blood seeping from his split knuckle. Someone shuffled their feet nervously. “Atwood. Fisher. Morris,” the coach barked, “get your asses into my office, now. The rest of you get the hell out of here. Expect a call.”

A sudden rush of footsteps and a hand clamped around his arm, pulling Ryan to his feet. “When I say now, I mean now. Move it.” The coach terminated the sentence with a sharp turn, crossing his arms in front of him and glaring at the few remaining boys in the locker room. “Go, go, go.”

Ryan brushed the glass off his hands as he walked to the office. His split knuckle was still bleeding sluggishly, the joints beginning to swell. Without the unwary haze of adrenaline Ryan could feel the bruises beginning to form on his stomach and lower back, the familiar hot tightness which by tomorrow would become a mass of deep throbbing aches.

In the office the two other boys were stood near the door, too angry to sit down and too uncertain to leave. They shot him bitter glares when he entered, the thin wooden door squealing on its hinges as it slid back into the frame. He sat down in one of the chairs, suddenly tired, slouching low with his head laid back and eyes closed.

The door slammed open and the coach marched in.

“Coach, it wasn't--”

“Shut it, Morris,” the coach snapped, not breaking his stride. Ryan opened his eyes and sat up a little straighter.  An attempt not to annoy the man even more by seeming too apathetic.

“But sir--” Fisher tried.

“You know the beauty of this job, boys, is that I don't have to care why you just started a brawl in there,” the coach explained loudly, turning to stand in front of his desk and glaring at each of them in turn. “Dr Kim is more than capable of interrogating you all tomorrow. For all I care, you dumb shits want to kill each other, you go right ahead. As long as you keep it off school property and outside of school hours, you can do what the hell you like.”

He paused to give each boy a meaningful look.

“But I will tell you this: any of you _ever_ bring that crap onto the field and I'll have you out of there so fast your _momma_ won't know which way is up. You're supposed to be a _team_ , Goddammit!” he yelled, punctuating the words by swiping at the empty chair in front of him, knocking it backwards onto the floor and making all of the boys jump. “Are we clear?”

Ryan mumbled a 'yessir' at the same time as the others.

“And Atwood,” the coach pointed a finger at him, “the next time you decide to break a mirror with your sorry ass, do it somewhere else. You got it?”

Ryan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Get out, all of you. Out, out, out.”

 

 

 

 

Ryan went the back way round to the poolhouse when he got home, dropping his bike behind the gate rather than walk past the huge windows to put it in the garage. Both cars were in the driveway, an unusual occurrence with Sandy and Kirsten both deeply tangled in the legal nightmare of the Balboa Heights.

Ryan went straight to the poolhouse, flicking on the light in the corner in case Seth had been in there earlier and absently left something lying on the floor for him to trip over. He padded slowly up the steps and into the bathroom, sliding the lock shut automatically and slipping a hand behind the screen to twist the dial on the electric shower. The water released with a soft hiss and Ryan left it to get to temperature as he stripped off his t-shirt and pants and shook the glass out of his clothes over the trash can.  He then finished undressing and stepped into the shower.

As the hot water stung his back he began to take real stock of the injuries he had incurred, noting the difference between the sudden sharp pains in dozens of places on his back from the glass and the slow burning ache which was much more familiar. His stomach and forearms were already turning a mottled purple-black and he imagined much of his lower back looked the same. It was bad, but he'd had much worse. A fact he realised that he shouldn't be proud of.

When he had finished Ryan left his t-shirt in the sink to soak the spots of blood out. He pulled his jeans back on and left the bathroom.

“So, dude, what do you think?”

Startled by Seth's disembodied voice, Ryan looked quickly around the poolhouse to see where his friend was, snagging a new t-shirt from the cubbyhole by the bathroom door.

“Dude? Did you like drown in there? Come on man, show me a sign of life, give me something here, anything.” There was a pause filled with frantic listening. Ryan straightened, leaning against the wall and peering round the corner to the kitchenette. He smirked. Seth was kneeling next to the door with a glass to the wood, ear against the glass, mouth open, eyes rolled up almost into the top of his head. “Dude?” Seth tried again, real anxiety seeping into his voice. Ryan smothered a laugh when Seth leaned back, flipped the glass round the other way and yelled 'Dude' into the larger end as if it were a megaphone.

“Seth,” Ryan intoned, before his friend could descend into a panic spiral. Seth spun awkwardly, saw him and climbed to his feet - a grin of embarrassment on his face as he shuffled the glass from one hand to the other. Ryan raised an eyebrow at him. “So what were you saying?”

Seth waved a finger at him. “Yes, let me tell you Ryan, you missed an epic tale of betrayal and--”

“Summer cancelled on you,” Ryan stated, pulling the t-shirt on over his head.

Seth paused, then nodded jerkily. “Right,” he admitted, rounding the kitchenette counter, “which means we can log some serious quality Seth-Ryan time here. We have Hellboy, we have X-men, we have an entire-- holy 'death by a thousand cuts', what happened to you? What was it, you get mugged by some little Chinese guy who took offense to your Aryan good looks and propensity to eat Newport Beach out Pad Thai? What was it?”

Ryan tugged the hem of the t-shirt down. “Yeah Seth, Pad Thai? Not Chinese. It's a completely different country.” He trotted down the stairs, shooting an unnerved glance at Seth who was still staring at him in shocked disgust. “Anyway it wasn't a knife,” he continued, attempting reassurance. “It was glass.”

Seth blinked and nodded. “O-kay,” he drawled, “so you jumped through a plate glass window to save a baby from a burning house . . . and, I don't know, maybe a cat?”

Ryan sat down on the edge of the bed and stretched his arms above his head, wincing when pain shot up his spine. “Actually it was a mirror. And I didn't so much jump as get thrown,” he admitted slowly, “by half the guys on the soccer team.”

Seth nodded sagely. “So I guess it's safe to say that Luke isn't quite as okay as we thought he was about the whole Marissa thing.”

“Luke wasn't involved,” Ryan pointed out. “Hey, no-one was more surprised than me,” he added at Seth's quizzically raised eyebrow. “I think he was the one who went and got the coach before I got my ass _totally_ kicked.”

“So are you okay? You need a hospital or anything? X-rays, CAT scans, liposuction? Or maybe you're in serious emotional pain and in need of some psychotropic drugs, huh? Don't you think?”

“Uh, no Seth, I'm fine.”

“Right, hold the Xanax. Got it.”

In the main house the phone started to ring, and Ryan remembered that the coach had promised them a call. He didn't think Sandy and Kirsten were going to take that even as well as they had taken it last time. He leaned forward to watch the kitchen windows. “For now,” he added under his breath, seeing Sandy pick up the extension in the kitchen with an energetic 'Cohen residence'. He listened for a few seconds and then grew serious. It was when Sandy looked out of the kitchen windows and found Ryan staring in, his guardian locking the gaze with a stern expression, that Ryan knew he was in deep trouble.

“So, you want me to run interference for you? Coz I can do that, buddy,” Seth was saying, a hand on his chest, suddenly serious. “You had my back with the whole Imax thing, I owe you a cover up.” When Ryan didn't answer Seth bounced up. “So, okay, how about an aspirin and some ice?” he asked nodding at Ryan's swollen hand.

Ryan twitched a smile. “Yeah, thanks man.”

Seth left and Ryan waited where he was, arms resting across his knees, knowing that it wouldn't be long before Sandy came in to discuss it. A stiffness was beginning to develop in his shoulders from sitting in a hunched position. His body was an aggregate of aching tiredness. Ryan yawned.

“Bored before we even start, that's not a good sign.”

Ryan looked up, noting the unfamiliarly cold tone. Sandy stepped into the poolhouse. He was still wearing a wrinkled suit from work, his tie pulled half-off. He held out a towel-wrapped icepack as he passed to sit in one of the wicker chairs. Ryan hesitated for a few moments, then took it slowly. Sandy sat silently while Ryan gingerly pressed the ice to the back of his right hand. He kept his head down, focusing on his task. When his hand had adjusted to the sharp cold and Sandy still hadn't spoken Ryan risked a glance at him. His guardian was just sat looking at him, his face a mix of anger and disappointment.

Disappointment. That was new.

He sighed deeply.

“What were you thinking, Ryan?” Sandy asked, the words coming out loaded with weariness. “After everything I told you last time, after Kirsten asked you not to.”

Ryan winced at Kirsten's name, saw Sandy's hands tighten on the arms of the chair.

“Why would you do it?” Sandy demanded, leaning forward, “when you know that one more fight could get you a one-way ticket to a group home. At best. Help me out here kid.” Sandy shook his head. “Tell me what's going on in that head of yours.”

Ryan looked everywhere but at Sandy. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly.

Sandy frowned, frustrated. “You of all people should know there's no point in saying it if you don't mean it. So just don't, not if you're just going to turn right around and do it again.”

“I _am_ sorry,” Ryan insisted, fighting to put words to thoughts in his head. “I know it was stupid--”

“Stupid and dangerous.”

“Yeah, well believe it or not it wasn't my fault,” he muttered, his muscles drawing tense even as he said it.

“Okay, you didn't start it,” Sandy replied loudly, seemingly oblivious. “So tell me I'm mistaken that you could have walked away.” Ryan didn't respond and Sandy nodded to himself. “That's what I thought. Well I told you this before and I'll tell you again, you are going to have to find a way to deal with this. And I know sometimes it's going to be near impossible not punch someone, and believe me, I understand. I mean, my father-in-law is Caleb Nichol. But you have to figure this out. This is not Chino. At your old school maybe fighting wasn't such a big deal, but here it is. So you have to stop.”

Ryan nodded. “I know, I'll try.”

Sandy stood, still frowning, unappeased by Ryan's acquiescence. He opened his mouth as if to speak but let it drop closed again as he put his hands on his hips, flicking the jacket out of the way unconsciously. The kind of deliberate action honed through years of dealing with difficult kids. “What am I going to do with you?” He sighed and reached up to hook his tie over his head, slowly drawing the knot out as the loop hung like a noose from his hands.

Ryan tensed again, licked his lips nervously, removed the ice from his hand to the bed beside him with slow, deliberate movements.

The knot out, Sandy carefully folded the blue silk and coaxed it into the jacket pocket. “In the meantime,” he continued, “you're grounded for a week. No TV, no Playstation, no comics. And no Marissa,” he added, turning on his way to the poolhouse door. “Just school and homework and work. That's it. Understand?”

“Yeah,” Ryan answered, “I understand.”

Ryan watched Sandy walk back into the main house then dropped back on the bed and closed his eyes, concentrating on breathing. Inhale. Exhale.

Not thinking about Sandy and his anger.

Inhale.

Not thinking about disappointment.

Exhale.

Just letting his body succumb to exhaustion.

Inhale.

Then he remembered the icepack soaking into Kirsten's Egyptian Cotton sheets and the t-shirt she had bought him now bloody and soaking in the bathroom. And for the first time in his life he found himself wishing that he hadn't hit someone.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chino,  
** **Spring 2002**  
  
  
“What have you been doing, you little shit?”  
  
Ryan froze next to the kitchen entryway, backpack dangling from one hand.  
  
Three steps in the door and he already regretted coming home.  
  
He sighed and tilted his head back, glancing sideways at his mom's current Man-of-the-Month. Jake was lounging on the recliner in just his sweatpants, bare feet propped up on the coffee table between two open packets of cigarettes and a near-empty bottle of Seagrams. The man's cold grey eyes were on Ryan, catching him, staring him down. Ryan swallowed uncomfortably and stayed silent. With a muttered expletive Jake pushed himself up out of the worn brown recliner, placing his beer on the TV tray next to it with a bang before drawing himself up to his full six foot.   
  
“Where's Mom?” Ryan asked warily, letting his bag drop to the floor by the wall.  
  
“She went out looking for you, dumbshit,” Jake spat. “And I asked you a question.” He took a step closer and round the side of the chair, planting himself firmly between Ryan and the front door. Ryan's eyes flicked around the house, recording, taking stock. The living room floor was littered with beer cans, the ashtray full of cigarette butts and roaches.  
  
And then there was the whiskey.  
  
Now it was a peculiar idiosyncrasy with his mom's latest Asshole-of-the-Week that he had no qualms smoking crack with his weed but he wouldn't touch liquor.  
  
And Dawn never left a bottle disregarded like that unless it was empty.  
  
Jake shook his head and stepped closer again, jerking Ryan's attention back. “I know you didn't just ignore me a second time.”  
  
Ryan racked his memory for anything he could have done since that morning to piss the man off so much. He drew a blank. The last time he'd even got in trouble outside of the house was the fight he'd been in at school on Monday and Jake already knew about that.  
  
“You gonna answer the question, boy?” Jake demanded, pressing his hands to his hips and tipping his head to one side.  
  
Ryan shook his head. “I haven't done anything,” he protested. The hands clenched, thick ropey muscles standing out in relief up the man's arms and Ryan tensed.  
  
“You haven't done anything,” Jake repeated scornfully. He strode forward suddenly and slammed Ryan back into the wall, a heavy hand pushed against his chest, pinning him in place. “Then what the hell is this?” He dug a fist into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, which he shoved in Ryan's face, ignoring his involuntary flinch.  
  
Ryan stared uncomprehending at the wrinkled text, drawing short shaky breaths, until Jake took a step back, slapping the paper against Ryan's chest as he removed the weight from his other hand slowly. He left his index finger against a rib, a small warning not to move. Ryan tentatively took the paper and smoothed it out. It was a letter demanding payment for the property damaged in the fight.  
  
“You're gonna explain to me, and explain to me now, why the hell you didn't tell us.”  
  
Ryan looked up. “I didn't think you'd care.”  
  
“Who did you think was gonna pay for this, retard? Your mom? She's just gonna keep fucking whining at me till  _I_  pay for it.”  
  
“It'd make a change,” Ryan muttered.  
  
Jake delivered a stinging smack to the side of Ryan's face. “Don't fucking answer me back, little prick. I oughta just let both of you go to court.”  
  
Ryan gritted his teeth, breathing against the pain that radiated through his skull. “I'm sorry.”  
  
“I'm not asking for sorry. It's too fucking late.” Jake laid a careful hand on the wall next to Ryan's head and leaned in suffocatingly close. He smelled of stale beer and aftershave.  
  
The front door flew open and Dawn stormed in, stumbling between the tightly-packed furniture for the coffee table and snatching the whiskey bottle. She spun around toward the kitchen and pulled up short when she saw them, eyes unglazing slightly with the recognition. They narrowed as they focused on Jake.  
  
“He tell you what's going on?” she slurred, waving the bottle at Ryan.  
  
Jake scowled at him. “Apparently he didn't think we'd care,” he answered, effortlessly pushing his bulky frame back from the wall and walking into the kitchen.  
  
Ryan closed his eyes.  
  
“Damn, Ryan. I don't got enough to worry about?” Dawn yelled. “What if they send the cops round?”  
  
“They won't, Mom.”  
  
Dawn glared. “I have to go to court, I'm gonna get fired. You want that?”  
  
“You won't have to. I'll pay for it.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Jake demanded, yanking the refrigerator door open. “How exactly are you planning to do that?” He fished inside, watching Ryan over the top of the door. He pulled out a beer. “You gonna go into business with that good-for-nothing  _pussy_  brother of yours?” Jake conjectured, shoving the door shut as an emphasis to his words.  
  
Dawn swayed forward at that, lips pressed tightly together. “Oh, no. You're not getting mixed up with Trey. I ain't putting up with all that shit from you too.”  
  
Ryan glared at the floor, jaw clamped shut. His hands were shoved deep into his sweatshirt pockets, pulling the cotton close around him.  
  
Jake leaned back against the kitchen counter, swigging at his beer.  
  
Dawn just huffed quietly and turned again, dropping indelicately onto one of the chairs. She leaned forward to pick a remainder from the ashtray, half-smoked and discarded.  
  
“So what's your great idea, genius?” Jake asked.  
  
Ryan shrugged. “I'll get a job.”  
  
“Doing what? Huh? You'd probably get all of a buck fifty up on Sunset.”  
  
“You would know,” Ryan shot back. He froze, muscles tightening until he could feel the tension spreading across the back of his neck.  
  
“Come here.” A low, feral growl.  
  
But Ryan remained motionless, eyes darting from Jake to the hallway, assessing and re-assessing how fast he would have to move.  
  
Jake shifted his weight and Ryan jumped forward, bolting for the archway into the hall. He grabbed the edge of the wall and swung himself round the corner before he felt the grip latch onto his wrist. He was wrenched backwards before he could stop moving forward, the sudden strain sending a jolt of electricity through his arm and up into his shoulder. He was on the floor, Jake's hand wrapped around his neck, immobilising him, the punches connecting more fiercely because there was no room to roll with them.  
  
_Half the mass of an object times its velocity squared._  
  
He felt his lip split, blood smearing across his face.  
  
A blow to his ribcage drove the air out of his lungs.  
  
He crossed his arms over his head and waited. Swallowing back tears. Enduring Jake's panting, heavy rage.  
  
When the oppressive weight finally lifted off him Ryan rolled slowly onto his side, folding an arm around his stomach. He could feel the blood leaving a wet trail down his face.   
  
Footsteps thudded away.  
  
Returned.  
  
The snap of leather against leather.  
  
Ryan closed his eyes, numb fingertips clawing the rough carpet. Breathing the dust as pain bit into his skin.  
  
The clinking of glass as Dawn poured herself another drink and her repetitive, whispered  _'dammit'_.   
  
The bitter odour of smoke.  
  
“I'm going to the store. You'd better have thought of something when I get back, punk.”  
  
The front door clicked shut.  
  
Ryan lay still for an eternity, until lights stopped flashing in front of his eyes with every heartbeat. His pulse was a thundering staccato drum.  
  
“Ryan.” There was a hand in his hair. “Ryan, you have to get up.” He opened his eyes and blinked. Dawn shook him by the shoulder. A new cigarette was dangling out of her mouth. “Come on, Ryan. He's gonna be back soon.” She raised a hand to her lips and tugged the cigarette out briefly. Her ice pink nail varnish was chipped around the edges. “Come on, Ryan,” she repeated, the patience leaving her voice.  
  
Ryan sighed and pushed himself up, stopping suddenly when the movement jarred sensation back into his nerves. He paused long enough to pull air into his lungs before laboriously getting to his feet. Dawn had already stood, impassively puffing on the cigarette. Every few seconds she glanced at the door. “You shouldn't have said that. Why do you always have to do that?” She put her free arm across her waist, grasping at the thin t-shirt she was wearing. “Goddammit, Ryan. I don't need this.”  
  
Ryan halted on his way to the bathroom, a steadying hand on the wall. “Right, Mom,” he said caustically, “ _you_  don't need this.” She gave him a guilty look, cigarette wavering in mid-air and he turned back around and hobbled into the bathroom.  
  
“You have to go,” her voice followed him.  
  
“What?” Ryan ducked his head, clutching at the sink for balance. “Mom!”  
  
“Just for a few days, until he calms down.”  
  
“Yeah, coz he's usually so reasonable,” Ryan retorted. He looked up into the cracked mirror on the front of the medicine cabinet. Dawn's imperfect reflection stared over his shoulder.  
  
“You gotta go, Ryan. You can stay with your brother for a while,” she said, forcing a tremulous smile. “Or that girl you're seeing, what's her name?”  
  
“So now you  _want_  me to hang round with Trey,” Ryan stated flatly.  
  
The smile vanished, broken in two by the crack in the glass. “I ain't arguing with you any more. Just get out. Now.”  
  
Ryan looked back down at the sink, flicking the faucet on. When he looked back up at the mirror Dawn was gone. Ryan could hear her in the kitchen. He watched the water swirling down the rusty drain. He splashed his face and rubbed off the worst of the blood with toilet tissue, a difficult task when stretching at all pulled the wounds on his back and aggravated the searing pain in his shoulder. Even after he had cleaned up he didn't look too good - his lip swollen and oozing and the left half of his face discoloured.  
  
Ryan walked back into the living room to retrieve his backpack from where he had left it. Dawn was sitting at the dining room table, a fresh bottle of whiskey open in front of her. The glass beside her was almost empty but for the barely-melted ice. She didn't acknowledge him. He shuffled back to his room to pack. He emptied the contents of the bag onto his bed: a few textbooks from school, the jackets ripped and graffitied; a pen, pencil and eraser; an old forgotten report card, buckled and stained, the line of Cs barely legible; his English Department Handbook, and stuffed between the pages a card Theresa had given him for Valentine's, blank except for a picture of Snoopy dancing on the front. He pushed everything into a pile at the head of the bed except for the card, which he opened to remove the coupon Theresa had slipped in, for a free sandwich at their favourite burger place. He put it in his pocket, behind his pack of cigarettes – the box crushed by Jake's rampage.  
  
Ryan took some clothes from the bedside cabinet and stuffed them into the bag. He pulled the straps on over both shoulders, fighting back a grimace when the injured one protested. He made sure to shut his bedroom door after himself.  
  
Dawn was still at the table, her ice half-melted in another double. This time Ryan didn't look at her.  
  
He didn't bother shutting the front door.  
  
Ryan grabbed his bike, his shoulder flaring again when the weight hit as he dragged it upright. He walked it down the path to the street and, after a brief pause, turned right.


	3. Chapter 3

**Newport,**  
**Fall 2003**  
  
A fact it had taken Ryan fifteen years to learn: sunrises over the ocean were the most beautiful kind.   
  
He sat under the pier, leaning back against one of the thick wooden pillars, watching as the inky black yielded and the horizon lit up golden-red an inconceivable distance away. The tide was out, leaving a long band of burnt copper sand reaching out in front of him. From above he could hear, every so often, the muffled tramping of people walking on the pier. The hushed murmur of conversation competing with the soft washing of the waves.  
  
The damp sand was frigid, hard-packed under his outstretched legs. Ryan smoked a cigarette, staring up at the beam support structure on the underside of the pier, the fascinating geometry and complicated physics which held the whole thing together. He took a long drag, savouring the smoke deep in his lungs, tasting the salt and grit on the paper, then let his breath out in a long stream of bitter smoke.  
  
When he had finished the cigarette and the sky was beginning to turn a pale blue, Ryan lit another one. Then he took his watch off and laid it over his knee. Intermittent trails of smoke obscured his vision but he kept his eyes fixed on it.  
  
**6:40**  
On a usual day he would be rolling over to pound the alarm into silence, then getting up to take a hot shower . . .  
Today the sand was a chill that seeped into his bones.  
  
**6:45**  
. . . out of the shower and getting dressed. Choosing between a black shirt or a blue one with the black jeans Kirsten had bought for him. . .  
Today the clothes were folded in the cubbyhole. The jeans he was wearing were faded, worn at the knees and the hems.  
  
**6:50**  
. . . heading to the main house. Choosing between orange juice and coffee, cereal and bagels . . .  
  
**7:10**  
. . . in the poolhouse brushing his teeth . . .  
  
**7:15**  
. . . coming out of the bathroom to find Seth in the wicker chair -   
coffee, bagel, Arts and Leisure section of the The Orange County Register -  
anxious to get the low-down on the parental discipline from the night before and launch whatever Summer-related trivia he'd been mulling over all night . . .  
  
Except today he wouldn't be getting advice, he'd be getting a note.  
  
Ryan looked up and watched as the tide began to change.  
  
He took a deep breath, stubbing his cigarette out in the sand, and pushed himself to his feet. He brushed himself off as best as he could, though much of the sand continued to cling stubbornly to his damp jeans.  
  
It was time to get to school.  
  
  
  
He went in the back way, chaining his bike up behind one of the lesser-used blocks before he hurried to class, slipping into his seat with a glare from the teacher for his almost-tardiness. It was near the end of the first period when the PA came to life with a loud crackle, summoning Ryan to the Dean's office. He got his stuff together - another accompanying glare from the teacher - and walked the empty halls to the administration building. He announced himself to the secretary and she sent him straight into Dr Kim's office. The door was slightly ajar so Ryan knocked on it and stuck his head through. Dr Kim looked up from her desk at the noise and stood, putting her pen down. She was dressed impeccably as always, her movements measured and flawless too.  
  
“Come in, Ryan. Sit down,” she said evenly, gesturing to one of the chairs around the massive table.  
  
He slid into it obediently, slipping his bag to the floor.  
  
“Would you like to tell me what happened in the locker room yesterday?”” Dr Kim pulled a file from her desk, then took a seat opposite him, laying the file down in front of her. She twined her hands together and leaned forward over the table.  
  
Ryan watched her reflection in the smooth polished wood of the table. “I was stupid, I got in a fight. That's it.”  
  
“Well I have statements already from Mr Morris and Mr Fisher. They say that you provoked the fight and threw the first punch. Would you like to refute that?”  
  
“Would you believe me if I did?”  
  
There was a long pause. “Well, I don't think I need to tell you that the Harbor School does not tolerate fighting.”  
  
Ryan bit his lip and looked up at her, astonished to find that same look of disappointment that Sandy had sported the evening before. She raised her eyebrows. “You've done surprisingly well here over the past few weeks.” Dr Kim flipped through the file. “Your grades are good, although you need to work a little on your class participation. You seem to have been working very hard to prove yourself.” She paused to look at him. “Am I correct in assuming now that the honeymoon period is over?”  
  
Ryan shook his head. “No. I wasn't looking to get into that fight. I want to be here,” he insisted.  
  
Dr Kim nodded. “Up until last night your record seems to support that. But to be honest, Ryan, if this is the kind of behaviour that I can expect from you now that you've settled in . . .” She closed the file and leaned forward again, lowering her voice slightly as if trading secrets. “I gave you a chance, don't make me regret it.”  
  
“I won't. I'm sorry,” he said sincerely.  
  
She nodded, a curt acceptance of the apology. “You'll be serving detention after school for the rest of this week. As will the other students who were involved. I'm going to give you the advise I gave them: don't do to detention hall what you did to the locker room.” She stood again and went back to her desk. “Make no mistake, Ryan: one more problem and I will be forced to hand you a three-day suspension. You know how serious that will be for you.”  
  
“Yeah, I do.”  
  
“You should get to class.”  
  
Ryan got up and hefted his backpack over his shoulder. He walked to the door and paused. “Thanks.” Then he slipped out, shutting it carefully behind him. Ryan went to his locker to get out the few items that he would need for the rest of the day. He spun the combination dial and hooked the door open.  
  
“Ryan, dude, this is so not cool.” Seth appeared next to him, leaning against the lockers. “Are you straight going for the crazy certificate, or what?” he whispered loudly, wide-eyed.  
  
Ryan swore to himself. He'd been hoping to make it through the day without running into his friend.  
  
“Seth, it's not a big deal,” he insisted, pulling the books he needed out of his locker and nudging it shut with an elbow.   
  
“Not a big deal? So you just got into vast amounts of trouble and thought 'I know, I'll make it all better by running away.'”  
  
“I didn't run away.”  
  
Seth gave an exaggerated nod. “Right. You just took your whole Chino Atwood ensemble and took off in the middle of the night because that's your usual trip to the corner store?”  
  
Ryan sighed. “It's just for a few days. Until,” he searched for words, “ . . . everything . . . calms down.”  
  
“Yeah? Well let me tell you buddy, it's not working.”  
  
Ryan stared at him for a moment, mouth slightly open as he processed the information. Then his eyes darted down and sideways. “I've gotta get to class,” he murmured, turning and walking away.  
  
Seth hesitated, then trotted forward to keep up with him. “Why are you going to class, anyway?” he started in a lighter tone. “I mean, I dunno, but if it was me, I wouldn't be voluntarily coming in to school when I have like the  _best_  reason not to. And shouldn't you be camouflaging yourself in a dumpster right now? Or, say, joining a gang and getting a tattoo, possibly losing your virginity with a hot biker chick?”  
  
Ryan canted a bewildered look at Seth. “I can't skip school,” he replied finally, “they'll tell my PO.”  
  
Seth mouthed the letters a few times, flicking his fingers back and forth as if the words were some secret code that he had to decipher.  
  
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Probation Officer,” he explained. “And with the fights . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head.  
  
“Okay, so you're just not gonna come home tonight,” Seth stated flatly with a displeased expression.  
  
“I wasn't planning on it.”  
  
Seth muttered something unintelligible and looked at his watch. “Alright,” he conceded, walking off backwards, “I'm letting it go for now, because I have to get to Biology, but we're gonna talk about this at lunch.” Seth waved a finger in Ryan's direction.  
  
Ryan opened the door to the classroom.  
  
“And don't even think about avoiding me, buddy,” Seth called after him.  
  
  
  
Fourth period was World History.  
  
Ryan dropped into one of the heavy wooden chairs and pulled his textbook from his bag. He was surprised by a hand on his shoulder and glanced up as Marissa settled into the chair beside him.  
  
“Hey,” she said. “Where were you this morning? I waited at your locker for you.”  
  
“I got in late,” Ryan explained, putting his book on the table.  
  
She looked at him askance. “Really? Because Seth was on time and he didn't know where you were.”  
  
“Yeah, um,” Ryan stammered, looking down at his hands, “I meant I was late  _after_  I got in. I had a meeting with Dr Kim.” He busied himself flipping through the pages of his textbook, before eventually adding: “Seth must've forgotten.”  
  
“So what was the meeting about?” she asked, still eyeing him skeptically.  
  
“I, uh, I got in a fight yesterday.”  
  
“Wow, because that's so unlike you,” Marissa said, laughing softly. She grinned at him, flipping through her own book to find the day's lesson.  
  
Ryan gave her a half-smile.”Yeah, well, it's not supposed to be like me any more.”  
  
The classroom door opened again and Ryan looked up automatically at the movement. Luke entered, his bag slung over one shoulder. He looked at Ryan, then away, moving to sit at another table. He glanced back again as he sat and this time it was Ryan who looked away, back at his book. He thumbed the pages absently.  
  
“Hey, the fight,” Marissa said, serious, “it wasn't with Luke again, was it? Because if it was--”  
  
Ryan shook his head. “No, it wasn't. Just . . . jocks,” he finished lamely. He flicked the corner of the book again, listening to the crisp crackling sound the pages made as they hit each other. Marissa gently put her hand on his, stopping him. When he looked at her she smiled mischievously.  
  
“You know, technically you're a jock now too,” she teased.  
  
“Oh well, in that case,” Ryan replied, deadpan, “I don't think I should be going out with you. At least until you become a cheerleader.”  
  
“Tried and failed,” Marissa replied, waving her pen at him. “I'm not bendy enough,” she whispered, quickly turning to look at Mr Bendis as he stood to start the class. Ryan stared at the back of her head for a few seconds, then he turned his concentration back to his book as Mr Bendis explained the first exercise of the lesson.  
  
The hour passed in foggy quiet until the bell rang and Ryan closed his book with a sigh. He rubbed his eyes with palms of his hands, trying to clear the drowsiness from them. He opened them and blinked a few times. Marissa was already standing behind her chair. She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek.  
  
“I've gotta run, I'm meeting Summer. But I might catch you at the end of lunch. And maybe I'll see you tonight,” she suggested lightly. She hitched her bag onto her shoulder.  
  
“Actually, I'm grounded,” Ryan admitted, pushing himself to his feet. “Not allowed visitors.”  
  
“Well, they don't have to know I'm there.”  
  
He smiled and ducked his head. “Thanks, but, it's probably best not push my luck.”  
  
Marissa nodded, smiling. “Okay. I'll see you later.” She hurried out of the door with a small wave.  
  
Ryan had barely finished packing his bag when Seth poked his head around the door, flushed and breathing hard.  
  
“Ryan, my man. I caught you. Good.”  
  
“Seth did you just run here?” Ryan asked, pulling his backpack on.  
  
Seth merely nodded, drawing in deep breaths. He held up a finger and Ryan waited, leaning against the desk. Seth took another deep breath and straightened. “Just in case you decided to be all Stealth Atwood again and sneak off instead of meeting me. Come with me, buddy,” Seth said, setting off for the cafeteria, “coz you and I, we're gonna have a nice long chat about this whole thing.”  
  
Ryan rolled his eyes but matched his friend's pace, listening silently.  
  
“See I have not spent my time idly, Ryan.” Seth pulled a piece of folded paper from his pocket and snapped it open vigorously. “I have compiled a long and detailed list of reasons why you should not be sleeping on a park bench tonight.”  
  
“Seth, there's nothing to talk about.”  
  
“Hear me out, man. The logic is undeniable. See, first point - If you don't come home who will I play the ninja game with? Huh? Answer me that?”  
  
Ryan snorted. “Seth, I'm grounded. I wouldn't be allowed to play the ninja game anyway.”  
  
“Yeah, well technically, Ryan, I think the major rule with groundings is not to leave the house and you already blew that one right out of the water.” He pushed open the doors to the cafeteria and strode through, grabbing a tray from the pile and sliding along the counter. “I'll have the seafood timbale, my fine lady,” he told the cafeteria staff. Ryan looked on amused as the woman frowned and practically smashed the plate onto Seth's tray.  
  
“Secondly,” Seth continued as Ryan grabbed a sandwich and drink, “my parents are freaking out, man. My dad wouldn't even touch his salt bagel this morning. And that kinda freaked me out a little bit,” he said, pressing his lips tightly together and bobbing his head up and down.   
  
“D'you want me to pay for therapy?” Ryan asked, as they threaded their way to one of the empty tables outside.  
  
Seth came to a sudden halt. Ryan stopped a second later and turned to look back. Seth took a deep breath and seemed to compose himself, stepping forward again. “Ryan, as your friend, I have to tell you – never try to be funny again,” he said as he walked past. Seth put his tray down on the table and sat, quickly shoving a forkful of food in his mouth.  
  
Ryan sat down opposite him, leaning back in his chair.  
  
Seth gestured with his piece of paper again.  
  
“Ah, third point,” he mumbled through a mouthful of food. He swallowed. “Have you thought about Marissa? What if she shows up one night at the pool house? She's lonely, she's hurt, she's in need of a little comforting. And oh, you're not there. Who will she turn to, where will she go?”  
  
Ryan shook his head. “I just had a History class with her. I told her I'm grounded. She knows not to come by.”  
  
Seth seemed momentarily stumped. “Wow you really have all the bases covered here.”  
  
Ryan quirked an eyebrow and bit into his sandwich.  
  
“Okay, but what about your school work? The school won't accept assignments written on napkins with ketchup, Ryan, I checked. Personally I think that's a travesty that they can repress artistic freedom like that, but rules are rules.”  
  
“I have paper and pens. I think I can manage without stealing from the local restaurants.”  
  
Seth drooped in his seat. “All right. Be like that,” he said, his tone slightly angry. “But I'm telling you, Ryan, this whole thing you've got going on is ridonkulous.”  
  
Ryan sighed and hunched forward over his plate.  
  
“Seth, your dad he was . . .” Ryan broke off, picking at his sandwich.  
  
“He was what?” Seth pressed.  
  
“He was  _really_  pissed off, okay?” Ryan stressed quietly, not taking his eyes from his plate. “I just want to stay out of his way for a couple of days. Give him some space.”  
  
Seth's face softened and he leaned over as well. “Dude, you've got nothing to worry about.”  
  
Ryan sat silent for a moment. “No, I don't,” he stated, sitting back and glaring at Seth. “Because I'm not going back yet.”  
  
“Hey!” Marissa and Summer appeared in the doorway from the cafeteria. Marissa waved a paper bag in the air as she approached. “I brought chilli fries,” she announced. She perched herself on the empty chair next to Ryan and poured the fries out onto his plate. He grabbed a couple and tapped them against the plate.  
  
“There's an empty chair here, Summer,” Seth said patting the seat next to him. Summer was still standing, hands on her hips. She scowled at him and then sat, moving the chair further away from him as she did so. Seth opened his mouth.  
  
“Don't even think about it, Cohen,” she snapped, violently pulling the lid off her milkshake. “We rehashed all this in Biology already. Yesterday was not a date, so I could not possibly have stood you up.”  
  
“Well, what would you call it then?” he asked, hands spread wide at shoulder height.  
  
Summer tilted her head towards him. “I traded you in for a tutor. You know, someone who actually knows something about, like,  _anything_.”  
  
“All I'm saying, Summer,” Seth explained slowly, “is that we had a pre-arranged meeting, which you cancelled at the last possible second. That's a textbook stand up.”  
  
Summer pursed glossed lips and gave Seth a withering look. “You keep talking Cohen and you won't be doing any standing, because I'm going to ram my stiletto through your foot.”  
  
The table was silent for a moment.  
  
Ryan picked up some more fries.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chino,**   
**Spring 2002**

 

Ryan shifted the fries on the grey formica table, painstakingly arranging them into pentagons.

Thirty-eight dollars and fifteen cents.

He'd been thrown out of the house over thirty-eight dollars and fifteen cents.

He frowned to himself, displeased. The pentagons were much too uneven - the stone cold fries unequal lengths. He picked up the knife from the empty plate the waitress should have retrieved an hour ago and set about sawing the extra off of one. The door jingled open again. Ryan glanced up, knife poised, to see Trey lope from the dark outside into the bright unfiltered glare of the restaurant's white lights.

So Trey's hopped-up roommate could at least remember a message.

Ryan's brother took a few paces in from the door, then stopped and looked around, arms spread wide from his body as he turned from side to side, searching the room. He spotted Ryan and spun, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stalking over to the booth.

“Hey, Ry. This better be important, coz I got things I gotta be doing tonight.” Trey slid into the booth, glancing around behind him. When he turned back around his expression switched, frozen into anger. He reached over the table toward Ryan's face. Ryan grimaced, jerking his head away when Trey's fingers touched tender swollen flesh, and Trey snatched his hand back.

“What the fuck did that bitch do now?” he spat.

“Don't Trey,” Ryan said wearily. “She didn't do anything, okay?”

“Yeah, I bet.” Trey leaned back, resting his arms across the back of the booth. “So what did you call me here for?”

Ryan finished his third pentagon. He stopped, staring at the table, forming the words.

Trey waited patiently for about a minute. “Well?”

“Can I crash at your place?” Ryan asked, tentatively, looking up at Trey for his reaction. Trey seemed to notice the backpack for the first time, perched in the corner of the seat next to Ryan. “It's just for a couple of days,” Ryan explained quickly, seeing Trey's uncertainty, “I promise. Till Jake doesn't want to kill me any more,” he murmured.

Trey nodded, taking it in. “Sure, no problem. So . . . it's Jake now, huh?”

Ryan nodded. “Has been for four months.”

Trey's eyes widened. “Shit,” he mumbled. Then he focused back on Ryan and jerked his head forward. “I haven't seen you since Christmas?” he asked.

“I saw you on my birthday,” Ryan corrected.

Trey grunted. “I guess I was pretty wasted. So what happened to that other fucker? Um . . .” he clicked his fingers absently.

“Dan,” Ryan finished for him, beginning his fifth pentagon. “He's in Pelican Bay.”

Trey snorted. “No kidding,” he stated, clearly unsurprised.

“Coz of an unpaid parking ticket,” Ryan added, grinning up at his brother lopsidedly.

“No kidding,” Trey sniggered.

“Turns out he had a Failure to Appear on an aggravated assault.” Ryan went silent.

Trey looked at him intently. “Yeah, I can believe that,” he murmured.

Ryan shrugged one shoulder and finished the fifth pentagon. Five pentagons in a circle and another one formed in the centre. It looked like a flower now.

“So this Jake guy seems real nice,” Trey commented wryly. He tugged a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his denim jacket. He twisted it upside down and tapped it on the table to dislodge the white sticks from the foil inside the box. Then he turned it round again, flipping the lid up with a thumb and put it to his mouth. “So what did you do? Piss in his gravy?” he mumbled around the cigarette wedged between his lips.

Ryan rolled his eyes at Trey's choice of words. He wrestled a cigarette from his own flattened packet and got out his lighter, sliding it across the table to Trey, who was still patting down his pockets in search of his own. Trey nodded a thank you and took it, flicking the top open and lighting it with a single stroke of his thumb.

Thirty-eight dollars and fifteen cents.

“I need to get some cash,” Ryan said.

“Yeah? How much?” Trey lit his cigarette, inhaling deeply before laying his head back and blowing the smoke out upwards. He slid the lighter back to Ryan, who lit his own cigarette with no finesse and shoved everything back in his pockets. He picked up another handful of fries and continued with his project, one-handed.

“Forty dollars.”

Trey considered that for a minute and bobbed his head. “I think we can work something out. You want in on this thing I'm doing tonight?”

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked warily, pausing in the middle of his construction, fry in one hand, cigarette in the other.

Trey shook his head, sitting up. “That ain't the way it works, little brother. You gotta commit before I tell you anything.”

“Shit, Trey,” Ryan scoffed, “what are you a criminal mastermind now?”

Trey canted his head and flicked cigarette against the rim of the ashtray. “Are you in, or are you out?”

Ryan looked back down at the table, biting his lip.

“Well, little brother?”

“Fine,” Ryan relented, “I guess I'm in. Now can you tell me what I just volunteered for?”

Trey tapped his free hand on the table. “Cars, Ry.”

Ryan glared at him. “I ain't helping you steal a car, Trey.”

Trey jumped and looked around them. “Would you keep your voice down?” he hissed.

Ryan noted the waitress watching them and complied, spitting the words out between clenched teeth. “It's not gonna happen, Trey.”

“Hey, I never said we were stealing anything.” Trey straightened a little, shoulders slumping. “All's we gotta do is scout some out. We take a few pictures, we hand them over to a guy I know, he gives us our cash. I've done it a hundred times,” he reassured.

Ryan looked back at the table, finishing up the last pentagon. The two flower shapes adjoined and he had the net of a dodecahedron.

Trey was watching him. He waved his cigarette at the pattern of fries on the table. “What is that shit, anyway?”

Ryan paused, then shrugged nonchalantly. “I dunno. I was bored, waiting for your ass to show up.” He swiped a hand through his creation and stood, picking up his backpack.

“You're a fucking strange kid, bro,” Trey offered, shaking his head. He patted Ryan lightly on the shoulder as they left.

 

“I've done it a hundred times,” Ryan muttered under his breath, eyes sweeping up and down the street. “Did you take this long every time?”

“Hey, shut up.” Trey whispered harshly.

Ryan bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, hands shoved in his pockets.

Trey was circling the car, camera in hand, a lit cigarette in his mouth. When he inhaled the tip glowed brightly.

Ryan shifted his weight again and walked to the edge of the curb, looking up an down the street, watching for lights in the houses. “Come on, Trey,” he ground out.

“I said shut up.”

Ryan let a breath out through his nose.

Trey was admiring the car, shaking his head. He took his cigarette out of his mouth, leaning over to look in the windows at the black leather interior. He rested his palm on the roof above the window, the cigarette dripping ash onto the immaculate paintwork. He gave a low whistle.

“What kind of dumbass leaves a car like this in a neighbourhood like this?” Trey wondered aloud, tracing the sleek lines down the hood of the vehicle until he came to the wheel arch. He fingered the elegant silver lettering and the crossed flags with the double S. “Shoulda put it in the garage,” he stated finally, standing up and stepping back. He raised the camera, focused it on the insignia, pressed a button.

The camera clicked and flashed, a bright sudden shock like lightning.

“Shit, Trey!” Ryan snapped, “you didn't turn the flash off?”

“A black car at night, Ry,” Trey stuttered, blinking, “would that even pick up?”

Ryan fixed his jaw and stared at his brother. “I don't know, Trey. I don't do this a whole lot. And apparently neither do you.”

“Just relax, okay, nobody's gonna see. And around here,” Trey added, gesturing at the houses, “who's gonna care?”

“The owner,” Ryan replied testily, looking past his brother to the car stopped in the middle of the street. “Or the cops,” he finished slowly, body relaxing into resignation.

Trey started to turn, following Ryan's line of sight. A flashlight picked out Trey's surprised face. He spread his hands wide, still holding on to the camera.

“Stay where you are, please, sir,” the police officer said sternly, pushing the cruiser door shut. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” The man walked over to them, rounding the car and stepping up onto the sidewalk, but maintaining distance.

The flashlight moved to Ryan momentarily. He squinted and lowered his head.

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” the officer ordered.

Ryan did so, slowly, keeping them away from his body.

“Is this your vehicle, sir?” the officer asked Trey.

“Hey man, we weren't doing anything wrong.”

“You gonna explain to me what you're doing taking photographs of a vehicle that isn't yours at three in the morning?”

Trey smiled. “What can I say, I'm an enthusiast.” The officer seemed unimpressed with that answer. His eyes flicked from Trey to Ryan and Ryan stiffened, holding every muscle still. “Plus, you know I work night shifts, so this is like, lunchtime to me,” Trey continued, chuckling.

The officer's frown deepened. “Can I see your ID, sir?”

“Sure,” Trey said, reaching slowly for his pocket, the other hand held up, fingers splayed around the camera, palm outwards – the universal gesture for 'don't shoot me'. He fished his card out of his pocket with two fingers, holding it up and outwards. The police officer stepped forward and looked at it, then stepped back again, all the time with his flashlight trained on Trey and his hand on the gun at his hip. He pulled up the radio on his chest, still watching then both warily.

“Portable 149 to dispatch.”

The radio crackled into life with a blaring female voice. “Go ahead 149.”

“Can I get a wants and record check on my older party? Name as Atwood, Trey, date of birth four, nine of eighty-four, break-”

“Go ahead.”

“-showing physical white male, approximately five nine and one twenty-eight, brown and brown.”

“Copy 149. Stand by for that information. Do you want a check-by?”

“Code four. I'll advise.”

The flashlight roamed again, tracing Trey's body from head to foot, Ryan's from feet to head.

“What happened to your face?” the officer asked, letting the beam drop slightly.

“Got in a fight,” Ryan answered promptly.

“Who with?”

Ryan kept his face carefully blank. “Some kids.”

The officer weighed that information. “How old are you?”

Ryan shot a surreptitious glance at Trey who merely shrugged, returning a blank stare. Ryan dropped his head again, inspecting his feet. “Fourteen,” he admitted finally.

The officer nodded, filing the information away. “Are your parents aware that you're out here?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan answered.

The cop gave him a disbelieving look at that. “They're aware?” he repeated. “Do they know that you're hanging out with this guy? They approve of that?”

“Man, this is my brother,” Trey interjected, sounding for the first time a little put out, “and like I said – we weren't doing anything wrong. You gonna tell me there's some law now that I can't hang out with my brother?”

“Trey,” Ryan warned, watching the officer's hand tighten on his gun, “cool down, man.” Trey stared angrily at the cop, bottom lip jutting slightly. “Trey,” Ryan said again, a plea seeping into his tone. Trey blinked and shook himself, relaxing just a little. The cop relaxed too, fingers sliding up the grip of the gun.

The radio let out a burst of static. “Dispatch to 149.”

“149. Go ahead.”

“Be advised subject has felony record but is not wanted at this time.”

“Copy that.” The officer let go of the radio and focused back on Trey. “I'm going to confiscate that film and ask you to leave the vicinity. Don't come back here tonight, okay?”

“I won't. Scouts honour,” Trey responded, raising his hand and saluting him with the 'devil's horns' - thumb folded over his middle fingers.

The officer ignored the gesture and motioned for the camera. Trey handed it over relunctantly, watching as the cop removed and pocketed the film before giving the camera back. “You can go now,” he said pointedly, “Have a good evening, sir.”

Trey pointed vaguely toward Ryan, confused.

“Don't worry, sir, I'll make sure he gets home.”

Trey hesitated, arm still outstretched. Then he dropped his arm back to his side with a muffled thump, shaking his head. He cast Ryan an apologetic look and walked away.

When the officer stopped watching Trey and asked for his address Ryan let out a slow breath and closed his eyes. He reeled it off tiredly.

“149 dispatch. Be advised I'm code six returning the juvenile party to his residence.”

The radio crackled an acknowledgement and the officer gestured towards his car.

Ryan slid his backpack from his shoulder with a slight twinge and climbed into the passenger seat.

Thirty-eight dollars and fifteen cents.

He was going to get killed over thirty-eight dollars and fifteen cents.


	5. Chapter 5

**Newport,**  
 **Fall 2003**  
  
  
Kirsten came to the door fully dressed, cautious and concerned. She opened it slowly, searching out the area. Ryan noticed the way her body tensed as her eyes landed on the police officer, more when her wandering gaze found him hunched next to the man, clutching his backpack tight in both hands.   
  
“Ryan,” she breathed, relief flooding her voice.  
  
“Mrs Cohen?” the officer asked, his voice flat and emotionless.  
  
Kirsten nodded, arms crossed, standing in the door between the brightly lit foyer and the dusky porch. “Yes, that's right.”  
  
“You're Mr Atwood's legal guardian?”  
  
“That's correct.”  
  
“Do you have any idea why he might have been sleeping out on the beach tonight?” he queried, indifference suddenly replaced by flat accusation.  
  
Kirsten visibly bristled – straightening and drawing herself tall. “He's upset about something that happened at school.”  
  
Ryan swallowed, wishing he could take back Kirsten's hostile tone. “I said I got in a fight,” he explained, drawing the cop's attention from Kirsten. “I thought I was in trouble, so I took off. That's it.” He stopped, took a breath. “That's it,” he insisted again, quietly. He looked at Kirsten. “I didn't mean to cause so much hassle.”  
  
“Well you're not in any trouble,” the officer said shortly, “but I will be required to write up a report.”  
  
“Is that really necessary?” Kirsten protested.  
  
Ryan winced. He risked a look at the officer and saw barely concealed exasperation in the tightness of his jaw.  
  
“It's standard paperwork Mrs Cohen. We all have hoops that we have to jump through.” He pulled out his notebook and jotted something down in it. “I advise that you and your husband sit Mr Atwood down and talk to him. If this happens again it  _will_  be more serious. You have a good night ma'am.” He gave Kirsten a curt nod and walked off back down the driveway to his car.  
  
Kirsten stepped out of the door and ushered Ryan in. He hesitated before slipping past her through the doorway, careful not to let his sandy clothes brush against her pristine white outfit. She followed behind him as his boots made contact with the foyer's echoing marble. The door closed with a loud clunk which made him jump. Ryan stopped in the middle of the space, blinking in the lights. He cleared his throat quietly and swallowed back the lump which seemed to have lodged there. “Where's Sandy?”  
  
“He got called out,” Kirsten said. “An emergency with one of his clients.” Kirsten's shoes clicked quietly on the floor as she walked around him. “Kitchen,” she said, wringing clasped hands. “Come on.”  
  
Ryan trailed her cautiously and stopped in the archway to the room, one hand braced against the wall, leaning in. Kirsten picked up a mug from the counter and held it out to him. He stared at it, perplexed.  
  
“It's coffee,” she explained, tilting her head a little. “You must be cold if you've been sitting out on the beach at this time of night.”  
  
Ryan pulled away from the wall and took the offered mug with a whispered 'thanks'. Kirsten got out the coffee grinder and filled it with coffee beans. While she was busy he sipped at the coffee slowly. White, two sugars - the way Kirsten drank it when she was up late worrying about something. He saw the piles of paper on the breakfast nook and the manila folders on the table. “Were you working?”  
  
Kirsten turned the machine on and it began grinding with a choked scraping noise. “Yes, I was. I thought since I was up anyway . . .” She crossed her arms. Kirsten was silent for a few seconds, eyes half-lidded, her focus concentrated on an errant cloth on the countertop, wet and leaking suds. In the light and shadow of the kitchen Ryan could see the sweeping streaks of drying water. He waited unmoving until Kirsten took a sudden breath and tensed again. “You know you've had us all really worried.”  
  
Ryan lowered his head, noticed the damp sand stuck to his boots. He scraped the side of one against his jeans but it just ground the sand deeper into the grooves. “I'm sorry. You shouldn't have . . . I mean I didn't think . . .” he stuttered.  
  
“You didn't think we'd worry?” Kirsten finished, appalled, energy-driven by his silence. “Ryan, we didn't know where you were.” Her posture was open now, leaning towards him.  
  
Ryan just shrugged, confused by Kirsten's angry desperation. “I was coming back.”  
  
“Well that's hardly the point.”  
  
The grinder had clicked off, and Kirsten's protest was loud in the sudden quiet. It seemed to echo around the room, unaccepted. Ryan shrugged again self-consciously. He scuffed the toe of his boot across the loose grains of sand which had fallen on the kitchen floor. Kirsten refilled the percolator with water and fresh coffee ground and turned back to him.  
  
“You shouldn't have got in that fight,” she said, her voice implacably stern. “And to be honest, we're a little angry about that. But mostly, Ryan, we're upset about what could have happened because of it. Believe it or not, if you had to leave . . . I'd miss you,” Kirsten said hesitantly. “Sandy would too,” she continued in a stronger voice. “And  _Seth_  . . . Seth would be devastated.”  
  
Ryan kept his head down, embarrassed and unsure.  
  
“So running off? It doesn't really solve that problem, does it?”  
  
“Uh, no, I guess not.”  
  
“Okay, Mom, I think that's enough lecturing for now.” Seth appeared from the family room, dressing gown slung haphazardly over his boxers, hair wild. “I mean, seriously, you and I both know that Ryan's just going to sequester himself in the Fortress of Solitude and lecture himself.”  
  
“Seth,” Kirsten warned.  
  
“You know, personally, I've always felt that parenting is much more effective as a two-pronged attack. So you should just wait till Dad gets home.”  
  
“Seth, it's three-thirty in the morning. Go back to bed.”  
  
Seth lifted a finger and squinted at her. “Ah, but it's never too early for a little brother-brother bonding, am I right, Ryan?” He threw his arm loosely over Ryan's shoulders. “We have hours of ninja time to make up here, Mom. So if you would be so good, we're going to need snacks, popcorn--”  
  
“Seth Ezekiel!”  
  
“Ah, the dreaded middle name,” Seth groaned, letting go of Ryan to clap his hands to his ears. “No fair, Mom. What did I do to deserve that? I was even going to let you cook.”  
  
Kirsten gave her son a black look and didn't answer. “I'm sure Ryan just wants to go to sleep.”  
  
“Who are you kidding? He's not going to sleep. He's going to lie awake and brood. Is that coffee?” Seth rubbed his hands together and stepped toward the percolator.  
  
“Well  _I_  am going to bed,” Kirsten announced, nodding her head once emphatically. She gathered the papers and folders into a manageable pile on the table and started toward the archway. “Ryan, tomorrow after school Sandy and I are going to have a long talk with you about this.”  
  
Ryan's heart clenched and he tightened his hand on the mug in response. Stupid to think that he could escape the inevitable, he berated himself. When his guardian had left the poolhouse the evening before Ryan had known that it wasn't over. And now, somehow, despite his best intentions, it seemed that he had managed to make things exponentially worse. And that was classic Atwood Luck - the force which was constantly pushing him into the gravitational orbit of trouble. Ryan breathed and forced himself to give Kirsten an acquiescent nod.  
  
“And I don't want to hear about either of you falling asleep in class tomorrow or you'll both be going to bed at nine o'clock until you're eighteen.”  
  
Seth waved vaguely behind him, decanting the contents of the percolator into an over-large mug.  
  
Ryan shuffled out of the way as Kirsten passed him in the archway.  
  
“Mom, the popcorn--”  
  
“--is in the cabinet,” she called back, already vanishing down the corridor. “Night guys.”  
  
Ryan finished his coffee and rinsed the mug in the sink. When he turned back Seth had retrieved the popcorn and was programming the microwave.   
  
“Actually it's probably a good thing Mom isn't doing this,” he commented as he put the bag inside and closed the door. The microwave whirred into life. “If I recall correctly, Ryan, the last time she attempted to make popcorn the fire brigade was called out. It was ugly. Really ugly,” he said, shaking his head. “And I think I may even have repressed some of it. It was traumatising.”  
  
“Yeah, Seth, I can see how that might scar you for life,” Ryan responded scathingly, pulling a plastic bowl from a cabinet and dropping it in front of his friend.  
  
“So, Ryan my man, what stimulating source of entertainment would you like to re-experience first?”  
  
“Well--”  
  
“Coz we are way behind on our ninja quota for the week,” Seth interrupted, peering through the microwave's thick yellow glass to watch the popcorn bag rotate. “But I know you're beach bum now and the sand is in your blood.” He stopped, brow wrinkled under heavy bangs of frizzy brown hair. “So to speak. So if you want I can probably find Pro Skater 2 for you and you can play the Venice Beach level. You know, work out some of those yearnings in a proactive way.” Seth nodded sagely, sucking in his bottom lip.  
  
Ryan stared at him. “Okay, I'm going to need more sleep if you're going to talk like that.”  
  
The microwave pinged. Seth pressed the door release button and it catapulted open into the side of the refrigerator with a resounding crack. He gripped the bag gingerly between two fingers and dragged it out into the bowl. White steam was already seeping from the hole at the top of the bag. Seth yanked it open and poured the popcorn out, throwing the thick paper bag onto the counter and trotting into the family room. Ryan screwed it up into a ball and put it in the trash, then shut the microwave door, giving the glass a brief examination for cracks.   
  
The console's start-up noise drowned out Seth's loud crunching.  
  
Ryan walked into the family room and dropped down on the sofa next to Seth, grabbing a controller in one hand and some popcorn in the other.  
  
“So what are we playing?” he asked as Seth stuffed another handful of kernels into his mouth.  
  
Seth attempted a response, a muffled garbling of soft consonants, then pointed to the game's box under the coffee table. He chewed and swallowed. “And while you've been lazing around on the beach I have been honing my skills. So prepare to have your ass kicked.”  
  
Ryan sighed, thinking about why he had been out on the beach in the first place. He figured that in less than twelve hours, literally or verbally, Sandy was definitely going to be kicking his ass. Part of him wanted to ask, to find out how angry Sandy had been when he'd found out that Ryan was gone.  
  
But Seth's attention was lost as the game started.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chino,**  
**Spring 2002**  
  
  
Ryan woke up to the busy clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen. He lay in bed for a while longer, sprawled face down across the bumpy mattress. He could hear the radio bellowing through the thin walls and Dawn singing along, low and hoarse and slightly off key.  

From the background silence to his mom's unusual morning activity Ryan concluded that Jake hadn't shown up again last night and he could at least hope for a clean escape this morning.

He threw the covers off without thinking, igniting the network of pain in his back and the muscles of his shoulder. After a long moment Ryan sucked a breath in through his teeth and managed to roll out of bed. He ached everywhere, the bruises having driven a stiffness deep into his muscles overnight. Ryan awkwardly pulled on his last clean pair of pants and threaded his arms into a faded blue t-shirt. Lifting it to pull it over his head his right shoulder twinged violently, the arm dropping back of its own accord to smack his thigh heavily on a particularly painful bruise. Ryan groaned quietly, leaning forward. He clamped a hand to his shoulder, fingers digging deep between the tendons in an effort to relieve the aftershocks of pain. It came in ebbing waves, riding on his pounding heartbeat. Ryan braced his head against his forearm and waited it out.

When the sharp pains dulled into aching Ryan pushed himself up with his good arm, went to the closet and got out one of the only shirts he owned. It was a black item courtesy of Trey, who had left it behind at the same time he'd left Ryan behind – in a frenzied rush in the middle of the night. Ryan shrugged it on carefully, letting out a weary breath when the pain didn't hit him again. The shirt was a little long for him, designed to be baggy on someone much taller, and the short sleeves reached almost to his elbows. The front pocket was ripped, also courtesy of Trey, who could never look after the things that mattered to him. 

Ryan moved to his door and deftly flipped up the lever on the nightlatch, barring the bolt with his fingers as he slid the latch up with his thumb to lock it open.

He walked cautiously to the bathroom. Dawn was still singing in the kitchen and from the hallway Ryan could see that the master bedroom door was wide open – another indication of Jake's welcome absence. He felt some of the tension drain out of him.

In the bathroom he turned the squeaky faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Ryan stared impassively into the mirror as the water dripped down the bruising on his cheek. It was a refined purple now with brown edging, creeping toward his left eye. His jawline was bruised on the right side, two pale brown marks where Jake's hefty fingers had splayed up from his neck, pinned hard against the bone. His split lip was swollen and spotted with lumps of black congealed blood. He probed the wound with his tongue, repressing the grimace when it stung. 

The radio in the kitchen switched songs and after a few bars Dawn joined in with it again, trilling cheerfully.

Ryan pulled himself away from his reflection, trudging heavily back to his bedroom to get his backpack, still stuffed full of clothes. He shut his door behind himself, unlocked, playing absentmindedly with the key on the chain that attached to his belt. On a good day it could take ten seconds to find the right key and unlock his door to get in. There was nothing in his room worth protecting that far.

The smell of burnt toast was drifting into the living room as Ryan walked in. Dawn was fluttering about the counter, pulling a worn knife from a drawer and shakily spreading butter on the scorched toast. She glanced up vacantly when Ryan approached, her singing faltering to a stop as her eyes swept past his face.

“Hey, babe,” she said, forcing an ineffectual smile. “I . . . I made breakfast,” she stuttered. Dawn's head jerked rapidly down again and she pushed a plate of toast over to him, the grin still fixed between dry red-painted lips. She turned away hurriedly, piling the last few dirty dishes into the basin.

Ryan put his bag down on the floor. Then he picked up a slice of cold black toast and gingerly bit off the corner. It scratched his lip and Ryan dropped it back, choking down the hard lump of toast with the sudden acute pain. He blinked back tears as he ran his tongue along his lip, tasting fresh blood. Ryan took a moment to breathe.

“Where's Jake?” he asked.

Dawn shrugged, wiping her hands on her white figure-hugging jeans, gaze flitting to Ryan and back to the counter again. “Oh I dunno,” she said. “You know Jake, he probably met up with some friends.”

“So he's passed out in a bar,” Ryan said.

His mom picked at the crumbs on the dingy white counter and shook her head. “I'm sure he's just--” she began. Dawn looked up and a frown flitted across her face. “You're not gonna wear that to school are you?” She reached out a hand and handled the shirt's flapping pocket. “Haven't you got anything else?”

Ryan took a deep breath. He clenched a hand on the counter.

“Where did you get it from anyway,” Dawn laughed awkwardly, “the reject pile at the Goodwill?”

“It was Trey's.”

“Trey?” Dawn repeated, suddenly suspicious, “when did he ever buy clothes? You think I don't know all the money he made went on drugs, whores and cars? Hell, you think I don't know that's how he got it in the first place?” She laughed again, but there was anger in it. “He probably stole it from someone. Did you check it for lice, Ry?”

“Shit, Mom,” Ryan exploded, “he didn't steal it, okay? You bought it for him.”

“I did?” Dawn wondered, all belligerence suddenly gone. She reached out again and gently pressing the pocket flat into place. “When was that?”

Ryan glared at her but she wasn't seeing him and he let the subject drop into silence.

He grabbed his plate again, sliding the toast off into the trash before dropping the plate in the basin with the others. He wove past Dawn, who was rooting around in the refrigerator, and yanked his bag up onto his left shoulder. He heard the refrigerator door shut softly behind him.

“You come home straight after school, okay, Ry.”

Ryan stopped and turned. Dawn had a small bottle in her hand, levering off the metal cap with a bottle-opener. “Uh, Mom? I was gonna go round Trey's after. You know, like you said.”

“I know,” Dawn drawled, “I can change my mind, can't I?” The cap popped off and the bottle hissed. “That cop yesterday,” she continued, brightly, “what he said. I been thinking. We should all sit down and talk about stuff.”

“You mean about Jake kicking my ass,” Ryan replied bluntly. “I don't think he's going to want to talk to me about that. Or anything. Ever.”

Dawn raised the bottle to her lips and sipped at the honey-coloured liquid. “Well he's gonna have to. You both are. We wanna be a family, we gotta act like one. And families talk.”

“Maybe I don't want to be family with him.”

Dawn slammed her bottle down and Ryan flinched. “What you're the parent now, is that it?” she yelled. “Do I gotta explain everything to you, see if you like it? You're my kid. You do what you're told. And I told you to come straight home after.”

“I can't, Mom,” Ryan yelled back, desperate. “He wants to kill me, I can't come back here.”

Dawn waved the bottle, chin jutting. “You're always exaggerating,” she said, “He doesn't want to kill you. Besides I'll talk to him.”

“Since when does he ever listen to you?”

Dawn's face contracted into a tight scowl. “Maybe this is the problem,” she spat, “your fucking attitude. Did you ever think of that, huh? Maybe Jake wouldn't get so mad at you if you didn't mouth off all the time and try to be a smartass.”

Ryan bit his lip, swallowed the pain. “I've got to get to school.”

“You come back here straight after, you hear me? Ryan, you promise me,” Dawn demanded. “Promise me.”

“Okay,” he spat out, angry at himself for relenting. “All right.” Ryan slammed the front door behind him, jogged down the porch steps and grabbed his bike. Angry because he knew that he'd be back, because he had never broken a promise to her.

He was still mad when he got to school. The late bell was ringing as he pushed through the main doors and made the long trip to his locker. He considered just skipping his classes and smoking under the bleachers but knew what damage a call home would do on top of the argument that morning. There were still a few students hanging around in the hallway when Ryan got to his locker – centre in the top row of three. He fumbled the combination with his left hand and flipped the door open. Several heavy textbooks came sliding out and Ryan, unthinking, reached both hands up to stop them. His right shoulder spasmed again, the shock of pain paralysing the muscles up into his neck and Ryan forgot about the books as his arm dropped. He vaguely heard them hitting the floor loudly as he braced his forehead and left hand on the cool metal of the lockers and bit his tongue. The pain seared through his muscles and Ryan swore breathlessly.

“Fuck,” he groaned, a little louder, smacking his left palm against the middle row of lockers. Then again, harder. Again, the metal clanging satisfactorily. He stepped back and put his shoulder into it, swinging his arm round. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He kicked the bottom row of lockers for good measure, denting the thin metal.

“Mr Atwood, destroying things again, are we?”

Ryan pulled his foot back and swung his head round until he could see from the corners of his eyes. Adhering to the laws of Atwood Luck, the principal was stood in the middle of the hallway, a thin and balding in an unflattering brown tweed suit. Ryan tried to summon his best blank look but knew he was still glaring when the man raised his eyebrows imperiously. “And do I really have to remind you of the school policy on language?” he continued as he stepped forward and tried to shrug himself taller – an impossible job for a petite man who barely matched Ryan's height even with the thick-soled loafers he chose to wear. “If you want to get back in my good graces I suggest you start by picking up those books.” Ryan glared a moment longer before reaching up and snapping the locker door shut with his good arm. Then he squatted down and scooped up the books, wary of his throbbing shoulder. They were in disarray on the floor, the covers bent and twisted beneath the bulk of pages. Physics and Math. He didn't need either of them, but he wasn't about to try putting them back. The principal gave Ryan a bare nod as he stood again, cradling the books in the crook of his elbow. 

“What happened to your face?”

“I got in a fight,” Ryan responded automatically. He was so used to saying it now that he almost believed himself. The principal snorted and flicked his eyes upward, swallowing the lie. Ryan felt that familiar prick to his pride at the unsurprised acceptance.

“Who with?”

That question was unexpected and Ryan hesitated for a second. “Some guy from my neighbourhood,” he answered slowly, only partly successful in keep the anger from his voice.

“Big guy,” the principal commented lightly, rubbing a hand on his chin as if to mimic the finger-shaped bruises on Ryan's jaw.

“Next time I see him I'll take his measurements and get back to you.”

“I take it from your attitude that you're unhappy about my letter.”

“You didn't need to do that,” Ryan replied, “I said I'd pay it back.”

The principal bounced on the balls of his feet. “Yes, well I took the liberty of having a look through my predecessor's records and it turns out you've said that before. Quite a number of times. Currently you owe the school somewhere in the region of $200. I could ask you to pay that back too, if you would prefer.”

Ryan barely held himself still, resisting the urge to pound the locker again.

“The school needs to take a tougher position and actually follow up these things. We don't have an endless budget, you know. And I would much prefer what little money we do have be spent on new computers and textbooks for those students who are actually attempting to make something of their lives.”

“You could have given me a couple of days,” Ryan insisted. “I haven't got an endless budget,” he mimicked.

“Given your past record I didn't feel you deserved the leeway.”

Ryan tightened his jaw until he thought the bones would snap. “Yeah. Great idea. Thanks.”

“I'll look forward to receiving payment,” the principal responded, deliberately oblivious to Ryan's tone. He started off down the hallway.

Ryan tapped a locker with the toe of his boot. “Next time save the postage and fuck me up yourself,” he muttered to himself.

“What was that?” The principal had half-turned in the hallway and was staring at him thoughtfully.

Ryan breathed. “Nothing,” he said, clipping the word.

“So you got in a fight with 'some guy',” the principal stated. “When I called yesterday to make sure your mother had received my letter, I had the liberty of talking to 'some guy'.”

“Good for you,” Ryan snarked, “I have to get to class.” He left the principal standing in the hallway, and kept his hands tight on the books to hide the shaking.

The day was an endless session of boredom interspersed with sarcastic comments about Ryan's face. He told the 'got in a fight' story three more times that day and made use of the lunch hour to smoke a pack of cigarettes. When the final bell rang, Ryan went to his bike and found Theresa standing next to it.

“Ryan Atwood, where the hell were you at lunch?” she demanded, cocking her head to one side and faking a scowl.

“Wasn't hungry,” Ryan answered shortly, focusing on his bike as he bent down to unlock it.

“Yeah, coz all the guys nowadays are on diets. The school pays for the meals, Ryan, take advantage of it. I do.”

Ryan finished unlocking his bike and stood, flexing his hands on the handlebars. Theresa smiled at him and wiggled an eyebrow. He sighed and Theresa's smile tightened.

“Right,” she said, nodding to herself, black curls dancing up and down with the movement. “Walk me home?”

“I can't,“ Ryan admitted, shoulders sagging, “I've got to get straight back.” He stared at the ground for a minute, watching Theresa's toes in her brown sandals as she wiggled them, then began to tap her foot, waiting.

“Ryan?”

“Uh,” he shook himself and looked at her. Her deep brown eyes were twinkling in amusement. “Are you busy tonight?”

Theresa looked shocked for moment, then she blinked and grinned. “No, I'm not doing anything.” She flapped her arm against the side of her leg. “Just sitting round in my room, unless you've got a better idea?”

“I, uh . . . I might need to come over later,” Ryan explained haltingly, watching as Theresa's face dropped, picking up on the subtext.

“Right,” she stuttered, nodding. She choked a laugh. “Right.”

“Is it not okay? Coz I can probably crash at Trey's if--”

“It's fine.” Theresa rolled her eyes. “It's just . . . I thought . . .” She sighed and laughed again. “I guess that's the closest I'm ever going to get to you asking me out on a date.”

Ryan flexed his hands again, running the conversation back through his head until he realised what he'd said. “Right, sorry,” he said, managing an awkward lopsided smile. “Uh, I'd better go,” he added.

“Later,” Theresa said, as he pushed off, giving him a small wave.

Ryan rode home as slowly as he dared, hands tight on the handlebars. He stopped outside Theresa's and got off his bike, pulling it over the curb onto the sidewalk. He walked past an unfamiliar rust-red Oldsmobile and swung his bike into the yard of his house. He dropped it on the lawn and walked up the steps, feeling the heavy tread bouncing the old wood. Ryan paused at the door, listening. There was no shouting, no sports channel turned up much too loud, just the faint sound of low talking from the living room. He took a deep breath and placed a hand on the door, swinging it open . . . and stopped dead in the doorway.

Jake was in his usual place on the recliner, but sat straight, the footrest pulled into the seat, his feet on the floor, hands lying on the arms. Dawn was sat on the sofa next to a couple of people he didn't know – a man and a woman, both dressed in rumpled suits. And they were all staring at him. 

Dawn opened her mouth to say something but the woman beat her to it, launching herself to her feet and extending a hand across the coffee table.

“You must be Ryan,” she said.


	7. Chapter 7

**Newport,**  
 **Fall 2003**  
  
  
“You must be Ryan,” the lady said. “I'm Miss Singer and this is Mr Acklesby, we're with Child Services.” She stood and waited, arm still stretched out towards him over the coffee table.   
  
Ryan stopped behind the second sofa. Sandy was sat in the chair next to it, blocking his exit via the kitchen. Ryan wondered if his guardian had positioned himself there on purpose, an extra warning in case Ryan didn't see the futility in running out.  
  
“What's going on?” Ryan asked, not making a move toward the lady. She seemed unfazed, simply sitting back down between her colleague and Kirsten – who held herself rigid and controlled, hands clasped together on her knees. He looked to Sandy, unsure, and was met with an unreadable stare.  
  
“Sit down, Ryan,” Sandy ordered quietly, nodding at the empty seat. Ryan hesitated too long, studying him for a hint of emotion and Sandy repeated the order, colder than before. Ryan felt a shiver run up his spine and jolted himself into motion. He moved round the far end of the sofa from Sandy and perched on the edge of the cushion. He looked over Miss Singer's head and out of the glass doors. Seth and Anna were outside, lounging on the chairs by the pool. Judging by Seth's frequent curious glances inside Ryan surmised that he had been ordered out there so that Sandy would know he wasn't eavesdropping.  
  
Miss Singer, meanwhile, had pulled a file open on her lap and was leafing through it. Apparently everyone had a file on him. “I understand, Ryan, that the Cohens were given legal guardianship of you . . . almost three months ago?” she questioned, her finger marking the place on the page as she looked up on him.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You're on probation for a misdemeanour involving a stolen car,” she continued, tracing the words on the page, “you've been in some fights.” She stopped, flipped rapidly through the file and pulled out another piece of paper. “Your social worker, Ms Patterson, expected that your behaviour was going to improve with your placement here. In fact, there are some annotations to review the guardianship if you had any more legal trouble.”  
  
Ryan looked up sharply, reflexively holding his breath until it became a burning ache in his lungs. Miss Singer was deeply entrenched in her file, but her colleague was studying him hard. Ryan lowered his head a little and peeked up at the man through his eyelashes. Watching the man watching him, that man that knew nothing about Ryan, sitting there in his ridiculous green plaid shirt.  
  
Ryan drew a slow shaky breath and released it again.  
  
“Which is why we're here,” Miss Singer explained in a more confident tone, looking from the Cohens to Ryan. “You ran away.”  
  
“I didn't,” he burst out, more sharply than he intended. Ryan bit his lip and tried to temper his tone. “I got in trouble,” he explained, leaning further forward, “I . . . freaked . . . a little, and I figured some space might not be a bad thing.”  
  
Miss Singer jotted a note down on a piece of paper. “Did the Cohens do or say anything to make you think you had to leave.”  
  
“No,” Ryan said firmly. “They didn't do anything. It was my own stupid decision.” He felt Sandy looking at him but kept his head down, nervously twisting his watch.  
  
“Can you tell me what you got in trouble for?”  
  
Ryan looked at his bruised knuckles, no longer swollen, now fading to brown. He pressed the fingers of his right hand flat against his left forearm, concentrating on the strain of the tendons rather than the twisting nausea in his stomach.  
  
“Ryan, just tell them the truth,” Sandy advised. Ryan swallowed hard, feeling the depth of those words in Sandy's tone. Too calm, injecting the distance from that first day, when Ryan had been just one more in a long series of screw-up kids in Sandy's dayplanner. He could feel a sharp, throbbing headache starting in his temples.  
  
“I got in a fight at school,” Ryan answered. “And before you ask,” he added acerbically, “it's on record. You can talk to Dr Kim, she'll tell you.”  
Miss Singer made some more notes. And her colleague was still staring at him. Ryan wished he could just tell them to go, get out, he didn't want them there. He wished that what he wanted mattered to them at all.  
  
“You said you freaked a little,” Mr Acklesby said, not ceasing his unnerving examination of Ryan's face. “Why?”  
  
Ryan shifted uncomfortably, the leather squeaking quietly under him. “I just . . .” he began wearily, “ . . . don't you need to be a shrink to ask that kind of question?”  
  
“Ryan!” Kirsten reprimanded, shocked.  
  
He ducked his head but didn't apologise.  
  
“I have to tell you Ryan that an argumentative attitude isn't going to help your case at all,” Mr Acklesby warned. “Now please answer the question.”  
  
Ryan's headache had doubled, pounding against the inside of his skull. He focused on his hands, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.  
  
Outside Seth was flicking through a comic book, making some comment which had Anna laughing and swatting him about the head.  
  
“Ryan.” Sandy's voice cut through his concentration.  
  
“I just . . . I screwed up, okay?” he snapped, exasperated. “I don't know why I took off, but it doesn't mean that I don't want to be here. It doesn't mean you have to come here.”  
  
“Yes, we do, Ryan,” Mr Acklesby replied, ignoring Ryan's glare. “That's our job. Now if you're not happy here with the Cohens, if this isn't a good environment for you, then we have to seriously consider removing you from their care.”  
  
Ryan stared at the man. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at that. Child Services, in all its wisdom, had left him with his mother for fifteen years. And no-one was about to tell him that a faltering lie should beat bruises and broken bones every time. “So should I go pack?” Ryan asked finally, forcing the question out of a dry throat.  
  
Miss Singer closed her notebook. “No, not this time. But Ryan, if you really want to stay here, you're going to have to start making a real effort to stay out of trouble. I can tell you for a fact that if, within the next three months, the police catch you running away or getting in a fight, or if you get a suspension or expulsion from school, Child Services  _will_  be back and you will not be. Understood?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
"And let me just stress that this is not a license to misbehave in three month's time. We're keeping a close eye on you, Ryan."  
  
Miss Singer gave him a final severe look as Sandy and Kirsten stood up. She and her colleague shook their hands and Kirsten ushered them slowly out of the door.  
  
Ryan remained on the sofa, head low, arms braced across his legs, waiting for someone to speak. He heard Sandy sigh and shift in his seat. Kirsten's heels seemed louder than they had been the night before as she walked back down the stairs behind him. She didn't sit again, but stopped there, and Ryan imagined her between the pillars of the archway, arms crossed.  
  
His shoulders tensed, Ryan froze in position. Movement in front of him made Ryan flick his eyes upwards to see Seth not so slyly tugging his pool chair closer to the steps. He was apparently examining the clouds, lips pursed as if whistling. When his chair was suitably placed he turned to sit in it. He caught Ryan's eye and, with a glance first at both of his parents, mouthed 'what's up?'.  
  
Ryan didn't respond, lowering his eyes again to the sofa across from him, almost wishing that Miss Singer and her colleague were still there, so that he wouldn't have to have the conversation he knew was coming.  
  
“Unbelievable!” Sandy's sudden reaction made Ryan flinch slightly and had Seth trotting down the steps to stare through the glass doors, all pretence banished in his concern. “You  _knew_  this could happen,” Sandy continued, intimidating despite his unaggressive posture, slumped forward in his seat. “Just two days ago I had to remind you, and just to prove that you heard me you went and took off.” Sandy shook his head.  
  
Ryan closed his hand tightly around his wrist, squeezing until he could feel the pulse point hammering against the tip of his fingers.  
  
“You're a smart kid,” Sandy said, tempering his volume. “Too smart to be making mistakes like this.” Another long sigh. “And don't think I didn't notice that you never answered his question. There's an explanation there I wouldn't mind hearing myself.” Sandy sat back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face. A high-pitched squeal from the patio doors brought his attention to Seth squeezing through, halfway into the room, leaving Anna standing hopelessly by the pool. She had her head down, fiddling with her purse with both hands, looking acutely uncomfortable and embarrassed. Sandy shot Seth a stern glance and looked back to Ryan, who dropped his gaze quickly. “Well, until I say otherwise you don't go  _anywhere_  and you don't do  _anything_  unless we give you permission,” Sandy said. “Do you understand that this time?”  
  
“Yeah,” Ryan whispered. “I won't. I promise.”  
  
“Please go to your room. And stay there.” Sandy stood, slowly, and began to walk over to Seth, who was frozen just inside the doors, one hand still closed around a handle.  
  
His exit now open, Ryan picked up his bag and left the room through the kitchen, breathing easier again as soon as he passed the counter.  
  
“Okay, is someone going to tell me what the heck is going on or do I have to throw some wild theories together here?”  
  
At Seth's voice Ryan slowed his pace further, trailing a hand across the back of one of the dining chairs.  
  
“Not now, Seth,” Kirsten replied shortly. “Sandy and I still have a lot to discuss.”  
  
“Well fine, then, I'll just go--”  
  
“Seth, stay out of there tonight.”  
  
“Sandy,” Kirsten protested.  
  
“Leave him alone,” Sandy said, “I mean it.” Then softer, finally yielding to emotion, “Give him some time. He has a lot to figure out.”  
  
“And so have we,” Kirsten added, giving nothing away in her voice.  
  
Ryan didn't want to hear what was going to come next. He forced his muscles into action again, crossing the space to the patio and trotting up the steps to the poolhouse. Anna was sitting on one of the further pool chairs now, well away from the main house, leafing glumly through one of Seth's discarded comics. Ryan walked into the poolhouse, shutting the door behind him. Beyond the thick glass and down the steps he thought he heard Seth continue the argument with his parents. He wanted to tell him not to bother, that it really wasn't up to any of them now. It was only a matter of time before Ryan screwed up again, regardless of whether he wanted to be there or not, regardless of what Sandy and Kirsten thought of him. Kirsten's raised voice was audible now, although Ryan couldn't hear what she was saying, and Sandy's deeper timbre no less harsh for the distance or the muffling effect of the glass. Ryan let himself drop to the bed, resting an arm across his face.  
  
Just how in the hell had he managed to do this to another family?  



	8. Chapter 8

**Chino,  
** **Spring 2002**  
  
  
Dawn had been crying for almost a solid hour now. Between drinks, anyway. She had begun resentful, and had been steadily drinking herself into self-pity as the evening progressed.  
  
Ryan sat at the foot of his bed, his back pressed against the wall despite the lingering pain, just listening. His mother's muffled complaints filtered in through the wall, just distinguishable below The Tonight Show. She spoke in muttered fragmentary sentences.  
  
“The hell do they think they are?” she was complaining now, and Ryan wished he was imagining the slurring in her words, the way all the consonants melded together in her indignation. “Think I'd hurt my kid,” Dawn protested over the sound of applause from the television.  
  
“Shut up, bitch,” Jake muttered in return. A throwaway comment without real hostility but Ryan bristled anyway. He hugged his knees tighter and let his head drop back against the wall to watch the yellowing ceiling and the patch where the pipes had leaked during the winter, bubbling the thin plaster.  
  
“How'd they think that?” Dawn whined from the other room. “They only got that job coz they don't have kids. Can't have any so they have to come take mine, tell me what to do. What the hell do they know about kids?”  
  
“They don't know fuck-all.” Jake's deep voice resonated through the wall. “Now would you just watch the show – this guy's being funny here.” They were both silent for a few seconds and then Jake laughed - a low, rumbling chuckle.  
  
“Jake, sweetie, could you get me a refill?”  
  
“Can't you do it yourself? I'm watching.”  
  
“Please, honey, just this once.”  
  
Hearing his mother beg that man for alcohol made Ryan feel physically sick. He couldn't even remember the last time she'd asked Jake twice to stop hitting him.  
  
“Damn, now I missed it.” A creak as of Jake pushing himself up out of the old recliner, fetching a new bottle from the refrigerator. “There, you gonna leave me alone for a while?”  
  
“I'm sorry, baby. It's just these damn services people. What the hell are they called?”  
  
“Child Services, Dawn, they only said it twenty times. Like we care they've got a damn ugly mugshot and some piece of paper. What a fucking waste of my time,” Jake grumbled. “He's not my fucking kid.”  
  
Dawn began sobbing again at that. “They can't take my kid away.”  
  
“Would you relax,” Jake said, beginning to sound irritated. “They already told you they wouldn't, so quit with your whining and let me watch TV.”  
  
She quieted a bit but Ryan could still hear her sniffling.  
  
Ryan was tempted to leave the house and have a smoke, maybe even pass by Trey's and score a teenth. It would be worth breaking his no drugs rule if it would help him forget this entire day had ever happened. He didn't move to get up, though: firstly because a few joints were never going to make all this go away, and secondly because Jake had told him in no uncertain terms to stay put. And the problem with leaving is that he always had to come back.  
  
The television cut to a commercial for Smirnoff vodka.  
  
“Well, while I got five minutes, might as well go deal with your little bastard,” Jake said, raising his voice.  
  
Ryan gripped his knees even tighter, the bones in his fingers protesting at the pressure. He couldn't hear Jake moving with the television blasting the commercials, and he stared at the lock on his door. Ryan waited. Ten seconds, then twenty. A minute. Much longer than it should have taken Jake to walk the short distance from the living room to his door. He waited another minute, beginning to think that maybe Jake was just messing with his head.  
  
The loud thump on his door startled him. Ryan dropped both hands to the bed, pressing his palms flat to sheets.  
  
“Open up, punk, or you'll fucking regret it.”  
  
After a second Ryan slid off the bed and walked to the door. He put a hand up to the lock, jumping and jerking it away when Jake smacked the door again.  
  
“You don't want me to lose my patience, boy.”  
  
Ryan fumbled with the lock until it clicked open, taking a rapid step backwards as Jake pushed it from the other side and it swung inwards, rebounding off the wall so hard that it almost closed itself. Jake hefted a claw hammer in one hand and for a horrible moment Ryan felt the world drop out from under him. He scrambled backwards until he hit the wall, gasping panicked breaths.  
  
Jake just ignored him, pacing over to the single grimy window and digging into his pocket for some nails.  
  
Ryan fought for control over his breathing. His heart was pounding much too quickly, and Ryan found himself wondering if it was possible to have a heart attack at fourteen.  
  
“You're a sly little bastard, I'll give you that,” Jake commented, almost conversationally. He was watching Ryan's reflection in the glass; his rapid, shallow breaths and fear written so plain on his face that Ryan felt ashamed. He tightened his jaw and tried to compose himself. Jake snorted in amusement and positioned the first nail. “Sneaking off, convincing your school to drop the debt, getting those fuckers to come round.”  
  
Ryan shook his head. “I didn't--” His trembling protest was drowned out as Jake hammered the first nail through the window frame into the sill. The glass rattled.  
  
“It didn't help you much, did it, smartass? Coz you're still in the same place.” Jake banged a couple more nails through.  
  
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked, breathing finally normal.  
  
“What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?” Jake put another nail in, smashing it flush with the wooden frame. Then he tested the window, trying to force his fingers under the frame and push it up, throwing all of his weight against it. The glass rattled again but the wood didn't budge. Jake dusted his hand on his sweatpants and put the rest of the nails back in his pocket, apparently satisified. “I'm sick and fucking tired of you thinking you can do what the hell you like.” Jake moved toward the door. Ryan watched him, tensing even further, hoping he would leave and that would be it. Jake didn't though, pulling a screwdriver out of his pocket and starting to work on Ryan's nightlatch.  
  
“Shit, Jake, you don't need to do that,” Ryan protested.  
  
“From now on you don't do anything I don't know about,” Jake continued, as if Ryan hadn't spoken. “You don't breathe, you don't take a piss,” Jake huffed and yanked the entire mechanism off the door, the lock cylinder dropping onto the carpet, “you don't jerk off at night unless I know about it.”  
  
Ryan felt his face start to burn at that last statement. He looked at the floor, not wanting to catch Jake's eyes. He knew that Jake could never have heard him doing . . . that, but the idea that he had made him feel so vulgar and disgusting that he was sure he would never to do it again. Jake tossed the lock out into the hallway and then shut the door. Ryan's pulse rocketed again. He pushed himself as far back into the corner as he could go. The bed blocked his route to a useless window, so the only way out of the room was past Jake and out of the door.   
  
The volume on the television had dropped again with the commercials over and Ryan realised he couldn't hear Dawn any more, which undoubtedly meant she was passed out.  
  
Jake turned, snatching the hammer back up from the floor. He weighed it in his hand experimentally.  
  
“So this is how it's gonna work, bitch. You go to school and you don't cause any shit, coz I don't wanna have to hear about it. You come home, you report to me. If you wanna go out, you ask me. If you need money, you ask me.” Jake grinned humourlessly. “You won't fucking get any, but you will fucking ask me.” He took a few steps forward. “And when I tell you to do something, you fucking hop to it. I don't want to have to tell you anything twice. Coz if there's one thing that really pisses me off, it's disrespect. And you're gonna fucking learn what happens when you disrespect me,” Jake added, eyes flattening into hatred.  
  
Ryan wet dry lips, ignoring the pain from the split. He couldn't take his eyes off the hammer. The steel head glinted in the light. Ryan wasn't sure which would hurt the most - getting hit with the flat end or the vicious claw end. It wouldn't take much effort to break a bone with either. At that he had to clamp his jaw tight shut. He thought he might throw up, or start begging, and if Jake hit him with that thing he'd be doing plenty of begging in a while, so there was no reason to start now.  
  
All of a sudden Jake was entirely too close to him, so that Ryan could smell sweet chilli on the man's breath.  
  
Ryan's stomach was a roiling mass of butterflies and cold fire. Tears pricked at the back of his eyes and he blinked. He couldn't quite see any more.  
  
Jake reached out a hand slowly, pressing his fingertips against the side of Ryan's chin. His touch was deceptively gentle and Ryan let his head be manoeuvred until he was looking along the wall towards the door, the rest of him held stiff in expectation. His eyes darted sideways to Jake and back to the door, uncertain where the man wanted him to look. The wall's painted surface felt cold and rough against his face. Jake's fingers moved up to his hair and tightened into a fist, pulling so hard it brought the tears back to his eyes. Then he laid the hammer up against the wall too, obscuring Ryan's vision of anything else but the two metal points of the curved, three-inch claw. Jake leaned until Ryan could feel his measured breaths puffing against his ear.  
  
"You're lucky that son of a bitch called and wiped that debt,” Jake growled in his ear, “otherwise I'd be killing you right now. You believe me?"  
  
Ryan nodded, the movement jerking against Jake's hand in his hair. Whatever the cold logic of the situation, Ryan was convinced beyond all doubt that Jake truly meant it.  
  
“You piss me off again soon and I still might.” Jake thumped his palm against Ryan's chest, not a heavy blow, but enough to shock the breath out of him. Ryan choked at the sudden reverse of air, drawing in another breath against it, and started coughing. Jake snorted again, leaving the door wide open as he walked out, picking up the pieces of the lock as he went.  
  
Ryan waited until he heard Jake settle in the recliner again, then he shut the door, ignoring the hole where the lock cylinder used to be. He leaned against it, hands trembling violently.  
  
In the other room the television audience exploded into laughs and Jake laughed with it.  
  
Ryan's stomach flip-flopped and he doubled over, retching. The headache which had been gradually growing since that afternoon had turned into a vice around his skull. Ryan let himself drop to the carpet, no energy left in his limbs to keep him upright. He heaved again, violently, sure that his stomach was turning itself inside out around the hard lump of fear. His chest burned still from the interrupted breath.  
  
He thought he could hear Dawn snoring quietly, drifting from unconsciousness into sleep as Jake switched stations on the television, cutting the host off mid-sentence.  
  
When he finally stopped retching, Ryan's throat was raw. He could taste blood where the scab on his lip had broken off again. It dripped thickly onto the floor and ran hot across his tongue and into his throat. His hands hurt from digging into the scratchy carpet.  
  
Ryan sat back against the door and closed his eyes. A tear escaped, tracking down his cheek. Ryan scrubbed it away but another one followed it to run over his lips and into his mouth, giving the blood a salty taste. Ryan opened his eyes again and wiped them hard with the back of his hand, clearing the blurry vision.   
  
He wasn't going to do that. He wasn't going to cry, dammit.  
  
He could feel the dried tracks on his face, two sticky lines marking his reddened skin. His eyes and nose felt puffy and swollen.  
  
Ryan rubbed both hands over his face again, pushing his palms hard against his eyes.  
  
He wasn't going to fucking cry.  
  
His throat was too tight, so he took deep breaths through his nose - in for two seconds, out for two seconds - counting on his heartbeat. Eventually the prickling moistness behind his eyes went away.  
  
In control again, Ryan stood and pulled his cigarettes from his pocket. Then he flicked the light switch and went to sit on the side of his bed, one foot on the floor, half-leaning against the window with the protruding sill digging into the muscles below his shoulder blade. Ryan lit a cigarette, and watched the door.  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Newport,**  
**Fall 2003**  
  
  
It was the steady beeping of the alarm clock that woke Ryan.  
  
He opened his eyes slowly, blinking the sleep out of them, and twisted his head. The last digits he remembered the clock displaying were 4:07, so he must have fallen asleep sometime soon after, dropping off with his head down on his chest and his pack of cigarettes crushed under one knee.  
  
Ryan sat forward, his neck complaining at the hyper-extension it had suffered for the past three hours. He rubbed a hand across the back of it, attempting to ease the muscles enough that he could turn it without the sensation of his vertebrae grinding together.  
  
The alarm was still blaring, aggravating his headache.  
  
Ryan pulled himself up off the floor, using the window sill and the bathroom door for leverage. His back and legs were stiff too from three nights of sitting on unforgiving tile – a discomfort that had been effective at keeping him awake until last night. Ryan hobbled over to the bed and slapped the alarm hard with the palm of his hand, knocking it into silence. He stood by the bed with his eyes closed, head drooping, and tried to focus. If he could recall what he'd done yesterday, he might be able to extrapolate that into something meaningful. He'd had Chemistry, Spanish, his usual dose of detention. It was Saturday, he finally decided. Seth must have set his alarm when he'd come in the previous night and babbled at Ryan about Seth-Ryan time and comics and making the most of Saturday until Ryan had agreed just so that he would go away.  
  
Ryan rubbed his eyes with his fingers, pressing hard until he could see kaleidoscopic colours on the inside of his eyelids – glaring whites and blues and yellows. He blinked them open again and shapes danced on the edge of his vision. Ryan managed to summon enough concentration to change out of the previous day's clothes, pulling on a clean t-shirt in place of the unusually wrinkled green shirt he'd accidentally slept in. Then he headed out to the kitchen. It was bright outside and he put up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun glaring off of white stone as he crossed the space between the poolhouse and the main building. He made a new batch of coffee in a daze, poured his black and gulped a mouthful before he moved away from the machine and out into the hallway to start climbing the stairs. Since Seth was so determined that Ryan be awake, he was going to return the favour.  
  
“Have you talked to Ryan yet?”  
  
Ryan had just turned the first landing of the stairs when Kirsten's voice cut him short. He halted without meaning to, gripping the handrail for balance.  
  
“No, not yet.” Sandy sounded tired, but lacking that extra layer of coldness which had been chilling Ryan for days, ever since Child Services had made their appearance. Ryan hunched down on the step, following his guardians' progress into the kitchen.  
  
“Sandy, you need to talk to him,” Kirsten admonished, “apologise.”  
  
Ryan shook his head in confusion. He walked quietly back down to the foot of the stairs so he could listen in – curiosity overriding the instinct that told him he didn't want to hear what they were going to say about him.  
  
“I know. But what am I going to say? I was tired, I was upset, I didn't mean to . . . Kirsten these are the excuses he's been hearing his whole life – he doesn't need it from me too.”  
  
Ryan leaned against the wall, head back to compensate the overused muscles. He could hear Sandy padding about on the other side, his house slippers flapping to and fro.  
  
“Besides, considering what I told him last time he apologised to me, I think it would be a little hypocritical.”  
  
“I thought parents were supposed to be hypocritical,” Kirsten remarked wryly.  
  
Sandy didn't answer that. “I just don't know what to say any more,” he said. Weary. Defeated. Ryan shivered. That was the same tone his mom had used when she threw him out that last time, the same tone his father had always used when Ryan said something too smart – as if he had backed him into a corner somehow, forced him into a tired routine. It was a giving-up voice, an I've-had-enough voice.  
  
Should he have packed after all? Should he ever actually have unpacked?  
  
“I don't either,” Kirsten replied, the rustling of material suggesting close contact, “and he doesn't know what to say to us. I think the only person who knows how to talk to everyone else is Seth.”  
  
“Maybe he should be the parent,” Sandy commented.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“I just wish he'd talk to me.”  
  
“Sandy,” Kirsten laughed, “he's a teenager. I'm still waiting for Seth to tell me that Summer kissed him at my dad's party.”  
  
“She did?” Sandy paused for a second. Ryan heard him lower his mug to the counter with a loud clunk. “I miss everything,” he complained.  
  
“I never told my parents anything at that age, either,” Kirsten went on, as Sandy continued muttering. “And as much as we'd like him to be, Ryan isn't our son. He's not going to be comfortable sharing that kind of personal information with us yet. We have to give him time.”  
  
There was silence for a while except for the hum of the refrigerator and an intermittent, metallic clinking.  
  
_As much as we'd like him to be, he isn't our son._  Ryan's brain was too fuzzy to decipher the meaning behind that statement. He knew what it sounded like, but he'd heard too many drunken I-love-you's and too many rage-filled for-your-own-good's not to know that what it sounded like and what it was very rarely coincided.  
  
“I don't believe it,” Kirsten exclaimed, amused, after a minute. “Sandy Cohen, speechless.”  
  
“It's all this not going to court: I've lost my edge. And Ryan, he just keeps finding new ways to blindside me.”  
  
“He's a handful,” Kirsten agreed.  
  
“Have you changed your mind?” Sandy asked suddenly, and Ryan felt his stomach knot again. He rubbed his hand across his chest where the tightness had become a physical ache, crushing his heart and lungs. He wanted to stop listening and walk away, but he couldn't.  
  
“Never.” Kirsten's reply was so soft that Ryan thought he'd imagined it until she repeated the word again. “Never.”  
  
He swallowed and let out a shuddering breath, heart pounding from the near miss. Ryan tapped the back of his head against the wall.  
  
“How do you feel about it?” Sandy questioned, “We haven't really discussed it since the guardianship was finalised . . .” he trailed, left the question hanging in the air. Sandy was good at that – drawing information out of people, even Ryan to a further extent than any other adult had been successful, despite Sandy's misgivings on the subject.  
  
Kirsten stopped moving around, though she didn't answer right away. “The day that Dawn left – after Casino Night – I think I felt the same way you did the first time you saw her with Ryan. The way she trampled all over his feelings – and I know she was doing what was best for him that time, but still . . . You know that look he gets sometimes when he's thinking about her but he doesn't know anyone's watching?” Sandy made a noise of assent. “I just felt like . . if she wouldn't--,  _couldn't_ ,” Kirsten corrected herself, “be his mother any more, then I wanted to be.”  
  
In his surprise Ryan let his head drop back against the wall hard. He winced, noticing the tenderness which had built up at the back of his skull.  
  
On the other side of the wall Sandy made a contemplative noise. “Like wolf mothers adopting human children,” he mused.  
  
“Well, thank you,” Kirsten responded, part indignant and part amused, “It's nice to know how I stand.”  
  
“Oh it looks like your standing fine from here. Very fine,” Sandy added with a playful growl. “Very fine,” he repeated, words muffled this time. “Have I ever mentioned how much I love that skirt.”  
  
Ryan shook himself and quickly stepped away from the wall, making his way back up the stairs. The coffee was cold by now and sloshed violently in the mug as he trotted up the steps. He took another gulp of the liquid as he smacked the side of a fist against Seth's door.  
  
When he entered Seth was standing by the window with his cellphone stuck against his ear. He was nodding wildly, a stupid grin plastered on his face. He swivelled to face Ryan and held up a finger as he nodded again. “Okay, Summer. All right, I'll see you soon.” Seth snapped his phone shut. “So you're awake,” he enthused, “and you made it out of the poolhouse – I was beginning to think we'd have to declare it a country, maybe get an independent postal system set up,” Seth shook himself, “but that's beside the point. So, okay, so I know you were really looking forward to Seth-Ryan time today, but there's been a little change of plans.” Seth squinted at Ryan, one hand raised - crushing air between the first finger and thumb.  
  
“Summer's coming over,” Ryan stated.   
  
“Yes,” Seth admitted, bobbing his head sideways. He scrunched his nose up. “And I guess, you know, morally, it's actually two changes of plans, although technically once you change a plan it doesn't really matter how many--”  
  
“Seth.”  
  
“Um, yeah. Anna's coming over too.”  
  
Ryan canted Seth a bland stare. “You really think that's a good idea?”  
  
Seth forced his phone into the back pocket of his pants and hooked his iPod off the desk. “Why not?”  
  
“Uh, Seth--” Ryan started.  
  
Seth just flapped a hand at him and grabbed the coffee mug from Ryan on the way to the door. He swigged it, coughed and swallowed hard. “Dude, did you make the coffee again? That's like the third time this week you've almost killed me.”  
  
Ryan shook his head and snagged the mug back, downing the rest of the contents in one go as he walked past Seth through the doorway.  
  
“You're not pissed off at me are you,” Seth asked, trotting after him, “coz I know I said we'd get some Seth-Ryan time, and I know we've been sorely lacking in that department this week. You know, not that I'd imply that you're lacking in any particular department, just that we, Ryan, as a duo happen to be lacking in the spending time together. Morning father,” Seth interrupted himself.  
  
Sandy was alone in the kitchen now. He looked up from his paper and saluted them with his coffee mug, then went back to reading.  
  
“So my point is . . . actually what is my point?”  
  
Ryan rinsed out his empty mug and put in the dishwasher. He looked over at Sandy, who flipped the page in his newspaper and took another sip from his mug. “Summer and Anna,” Ryan prompted.  
  
Seth clicked his fingers. “Right. Yes. The point is, I didn't know it was gonna happen. It was fate, Ryan, what can I say? And one doesn't argue with fate – one simply takes advantage of what fate chooses to throw one's way.”  
  
“And 'fate' didn't prompt you to, say,  _tell_  Summer that Anna was already coming over.”  
  
“Uh, no. And again – why?”  
  
Ryan just shook his head again. He shot another glance at Sandy, who looked amused, although whether that was due to Seth or something that he was reading, Ryan didn't know.   
  
Sandy cleared his throat and folded the newspaper. “So you came out of the poolhouse,” he commented as he scooted his stool back and stood.  
  
“Yeah,” Ryan started, watching Sandy for some sort of sign to know how to answer. Sandy walked over to him and rinsed his own mug out in the sink. “I just . . . Seth . . . um--”  
  
“What he means to say is that we have brother-time booked which he was obligated to attend, which is the only reason he's not still moping in his room.”  
  
Ryan let out a small sigh of relief. “Right,” he agreed, casting a grateful look to Seth who just flicked his thick eyebrows and nodded, “unless that's not okay. I can go back in--”  
  
“So Dad, I'm having some friends over,” Seth interrupted again with a grin, “specifically girls, so can Ryan hang out with us? We're just gonna watch movies or something, and you know how Ryan is socially: this would actually be more of a punishment than a reward. Plus he's done a week's worth of grounded brooding over the past three days, so what d'you say?”  
  
“Sure,” Sandy answered, brightly. He clapped a hand on Ryan's shoulder. “Consider your grounding over. But you're still under Cohen probation. You're not planning to get into a fistfight with either of these girls, are you?”  
  
Ryan smiled despite himself. “No.”  
  
Sandy wiggled his eyebrows and patted Ryan again. “Good. Because what I've heard of Summer, you'd probably lose. We need to talk sometime soon, though, okay?  Great," he said, when Ryan nodded hesitantly. "You guys have fun.” Sandy stepped away from him and rounded the counter. He slapped Seth on the back on the way out of the kitchen and started whistling down the hallway.  
  
“Huh, he's in a good mood this morning,” Seth remarked.  
  
The doorbell rang.  
  
Seth grinned and practically ran to the door. Ryan followed in time to watch him sliding to a stop just before he hit the wall and yanking the door open as the doorbell went a second time.  
  
“Summer!” Seth exclaimed in an obscenely bright voice, “Good morning.”  
  
Summer glared at him and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” She pushed past Seth and stalked into the foyer. “Let me just make this clear, Cohen. The only reason I'm here is because Coop got dragged off shopping with her mom and the stepmonster has switched to the latest cocktail of wonder-drugs.” She grinned disgustedly. “Right now she's in what we like to call her 'happy phase', getting rid of all the Chintz in the house because it 'upsets her balance'. Hey, Chino,” she greeted belatedly.  
  
The doorbell rang again. Seth opened it. Ryan winced as Summer turned to see who it was.  
  
“Hey, Seth. I brought some snacks. And I wasn't sure . . .” Anna let the sentence die as she caught sight of Summer glaring at her from the middle of the foyer. “Oh.”  
  
Seth grabbed her by the arm before she could retreat and pulled her into the house, shoving the door shut. Summer braced one hand on her hip and pursed her lips. “You didn't tell me you were having all the boys over too.”  
  
Anna gave a little laugh. “Right, because we all know you're really uncomfortable around boys.” She walked off toward the family room and Summer hurried after her, trotting on her stilettos to keep pace with Anna's measured steps.  
  
“Well at least I don't look like a boy. Coz you know the whole Demi Moore, GI Jane thing is so not in style.”  
  
Anna flipped her head sideways. “That's a touching philosophy, Summer. Obviously Petrarch had nothing on you.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
Seth was left grimacing on the steps, listening as Anna explained.  Ryan just crossed his arms and gave Seth a look.  
  
“Okay, so that would be why. But it's kinda entertaining,” Seth tried, obviously unconvinced.  
  
Ryan tilted his head. From the family room Summer was averring that no-one knew how to write in the fourteenth century.  
  
“Yeah, so we should get in there before they kill each other.” 


	10. Chapter 10

**Chino,**  
**Spring 2002**  
  
  
“These chicks are gonna kill each other!” Trey's roommate exclaimed excitedly. He shifted forward on the filthy sofa, watery green eyes fixed on the tiny television screen.  
  
Arturo lounged next to him, one arm slung over the back of the sofa. He shook his head and kicked half-heartedly at the other boy's foot.  
  
“That's the whole point, baboso.” Arturo dropped his head backwards over the sofa, looking upside-down toward the kitchen. “Trey, you wanna get back in here and explain something to your dumbass roommate?” he called.  
  
“Huh?” Trey grunted from behind the thin door.  
  
Arturo straightened his neck again and flicked a lazy hand at Ryan. “Would you tell Harvey what the word 'deathmatch' means?” he said, his attention back on the television.  
  
From Ryan's position at the side of the room the screen was all glare from the single, curtainless window, and the appliance's one functioning speaker pumped out the tinny treble of voices and synthesised crowd. He shifted himself uncomfortably in his armchair, trying to stay between the two protruding springs without touching the mysterious black patch at the front edge of the seat cushion.   
  
Trey elbowed open the kitchen door and walked back into the room with a six-pack of Coors Light and a half-eaten bologne and mustard sandwich.  
  
“What did you say?” he asked his friend, voice muffled around a mouthful of food.  
  
Arturo looked over at him and then at the sandwich. “You didn't get nothing for me?”  
  
Trey took another bite from the middle of the bread as he shuffled in front of the sofa, shunting Arturo's legs out of the way. “You start paying, I'll start feeding you.”  
  
“You know how many times my mom fed you? And you never gave her a dime,” Arturo complained, kicking at the back of Trey's leg as he dropped onto the middle seat of the sofa.  
  
Trey swiped the hand that held the sandwich at Arturo's head, who dodged the blow easily and settled back into the corner of the sofa, brushing crumbs off his pants leg.  
  
“And if your mom ever comes round here I'll feed her for free,” Trey told him, “but you gotta pay up or buy your own damn food.” He laid the pack of beers on the coffee table, over the breezeblock which had replaced a missing leg, and yanked a can out of the plastic ring.  
  
“Rip her head off! I wanna see blood.” Harvey was almost off the edge of his seat now, his bony white hands clenched into tight fists on his knees. Trey nudged his arm with the beer and Harvey took it without letting his eyes leave the screen.  
  
“You wanna tell me how you found the one person in the world dumber than you to live with?” Arturo asked, wrenching out a can for himself and sitting back again.  
  
Trey ignored the comment and grabbed another beer. “Hey bro, you want?” he called over to Ryan, hefting the can as if to throw it.  
  
Ryan shook his head no. He'd practically had to beg Jake to let him out of the house as it was – there was no sense in risking the few allowances he got.  
  
Trey shrugged a shoulder and sat back. He flicked the bottom of the beer can three times and then cracked it open – the gas escaping with a soft hiss – and took a large gulp.  
  
“Come on, finish her!” Harvey yelled.  
  
Trey grimaced at his roommate's volume. “Hey Harv, go get your stash.” He slapped the back of his hand against the boy's arm and leaned forward again to press a button on the television remote which lay on the coffee table. Harvey twisted to look at him, eyes narrowing on Trey slightly in concentration.  
  
“You want my stash?” he repeated.  
  
“That's what I said.”  
  
Harvey nodded slowly and pushed himself up from his seat, ambling toward his bedroom.  
  
The VCR whirred and clicked, then spat out a video cassette.  
  
“Why the hell d'you have a Celebrity Deathmatch video anyway?” Arturo asked.  
  
“Housewarming present.”  
  
“The last tenant left it here,” Ryan said, remembering the day he'd helped Trey move in. He ran a hand up and down the arm of his chair. The greying material was peppered with holes, not quite the circumference of a cigarette, the edges of which were singed black. A rip in the upholstery revealed the underside of the material, showing the chair's original shade of cornflower blue.   
  
Trey swigged his beer again. “Hey, finders keepers.”  
  
“Did you keep the lace g-string too?”   
  
It wasn't until Arturo sniggered that Ryan realised he'd said it out loud.  
  
“What the fuck, Ry?” Trey exclaimed. “You don't say a word all afternoon and  _now_  you decide to talk?”  
  
Arturo laughed again lightly and sipped at his beer – muttering something in Spanish that Ryan couldn't quite catch.  
  
Trey did though and answered it with a forced smirk. “Yeah, you wanna repeat that?”  
  
Arturo shook his head, still laughing, and Trey punched him hard in the shoulder, which just made his friend chuckle harder. “Las mamas.”  
  
“Puta,” Trey retorted, the pronunciation fluid through years of repetition. He grabbed his beer again and sank back into his seat. “What the fuck?” he repeated to himself, swigging at the drink.   
  
“Chupaverga.”  
  
“Jódete.”  
  
Ryan rubbed a hand over tired eyes, feeling himself begin to drift even as they closed momentarily. His forehead was hot and clammy against his fingers, but he felt cold – an undeniable sign that his body had been driven beyond exhaustion. He would have to sleep soon.  
  
“Ry? Ry?”  
  
Ryan jerked his head up, taking a moment to focus on Trey's face, which held an undercurrent of deep concern.  
  
“When was the last time you slept, man?”  
  
Ryan shifted his gaze to Arturo and ran a hand over his face again, pulling himself together. “I'm sleeping fine,” he answered.  
  
Trey snorted. “You're such a fucking liar. Is that bastard giving you trouble again? Coz you just have to tell me . . .” Trey left the threat hanging. He gave Ryan an earnest look, anger making his eyes bright.  
  
Ryan tried to picture him in a fight with Jake. The man was huge and unnervingly fast, sourced by a bottomless pit of fury, and even with all Trey's hotheaded ferocity Ryan knew his brother would lose. Ryan looked away and started playing with the ripped flap of material on the arm of the chair. “It's fine,” he said, “I can handle it.”  
  
A bad choice of words, Ryan realised too late.  
  
“He's hassling you, isn't he?” Trey's volume was rising, the muscles in his neck and behind his jaw beginning to draw tense.  
  
“It's nothing,” Ryan insisted, glaring. “Just drop it, okay?” Out of his peripheral vision he saw Arturo's assessing glances.  
  
Arturo knew, in the same way that Theresa knew; an abstract awareness that was always on the borders of their existence but nevertheless couldn't touch them. Neither of them knew the way that Trey knew, and Ryan wanted it that way.  
  
Trey was studying him too, running his tongue along his bottom lip, apparently looking for some new sign of violence. Ryan stared back until Trey nodded slightly, eyes still carrying the shadow of anger, but relenting.  
  
“So,” Trey began suddenly in a brighter voice, “you been out seeing to the ladies every night, or is that just me?” He cocked his head to one side, rolling his tongue around inside his cheek.  
  
“Seeing to the ladies?” Arturo repeated, throwing Trey a disbelieving look, and jumping right on to the 'avoid the elephant' bandwagon. “I ain't never seen you with a lady, gringo.” Arturo looked back over at Ryan and pointed a stubby finger at him. “And you sure as hell better not be 'seeing to' my sister.”  
  
Ryan straightened a little, bringing both hands up in a conciliatory gesture at the stocky boy's serious expression. Arturo gave him a nod which was half acceptance and half warning and lounged back again.  
  
“What's on the TV?”  
  
“Turn it on and find out.”  
  
“You're such a lazy motherfucker, Atwood.” Arturo retrieved the remote and switched on the television, flipping through the channels with growing irritation. After a minute he switched it off again, the unit powering down with a click and the sudden cessation of low buzzing. “When are you gonna get that thing fixed? It's like one PBS channel and a whole lot of static.”  
  
Harvey re-entered then, carrying a small round tray patterned with orange leaves. “Sorry I took so long, I couldn't remember what I done with it,” he drawled. Harvey had a slow pattern of speech that made it seem as if he was perpetually searching for the next word. A state which wouldn't have been surprising considering his taste in pharmaceuticals.  
  
Ryan pushed himself up from his chair as Trey took the paraphernalia and began to roll up.  
  
“You leaving?”  
  
Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets. He pressed the heels of his sneakers against the base of the chair and flexed his toes. “Yeah, I gotta get back.”  
  
“You don't wanna crash round or nothing?”  
  
Ryan watched Trey construct the joint and light it, taking a long drag and holding the smoke in his lungs. He breathed it out slowly through his nose. “I got my own bed to sleep on,” he said, thinking that actually he would much prefer to sleep on Trey's filthy floor than go back to that house.  
  
Trey nodded, concentration split between Ryan and the high, fighting the losing battle that Dawn had succumbed to years before. “Well I'll see you round.”  
  
“Right, yeah. See you round.”  
  
Ryan let himself out, closing the door on the smell of tobacco and stale grass cuttings.  
  
He walked home, lamenting his confiscated bike – chained to one of the scraggly trees in the back yard until Jake decided to give it back. Or more likely until it rusted into uselessness. He flicked his index and middle fingers back and forth against each other as he walked, itching for the feel of a cigarette between them.  
  
Jake was sat on the porch of the dilapidated house when Ryan turned onto the path. His step faltered momentarily and he almost halted before he could himself forward again at a slower pace.  
  
Jake stood when Ryan started up the porch steps and his hackles rose. Ryan stopped on the top step, one heel protruding over the edge.  
  
“Quit dawdling and get in the house.”  
  
Ryan pushed himself forward again, breathing tight as he stepped toward the door, putting Jake behind him. He kept his eyes on the window, watching Jake's reflection solid at his back. He swung the door open and walked into the house, turning as he came level with the table in the dining area to see Jake following him in. The door clicked shut softly.  
  
“You know the drill,” Jake stated, sauntering towards Ryan. “So are you gonna do it, or do I have to do it for you?” He leaned sideways and tapped the table twice.  
  
Ryan slowly put his hands in his pockets and pulled out all the contents, stretching to drop them on the spot Jake had indicated.  
  
A lighter but no cigarettes, some small change he hadn't known was there.  
  
Jake sifted through the small pile, palming the change and slipping it into his own pocket. Then he casually grabbed Ryan's arm with one hand and patted him down with the other, pushing his thick fingers into the front pockets of Ryan's jeans, looking for contraband.  
  
Ryan held himself still, trying not to give into the urge to push the man off him. He clenched his fists. He didn't know how many more days he could put up with this.  
  
Jake reached around Ryan's waist and pawed the rear pocket of the jeans. He was in just the right position now for Ryan to get a good shot in with his knee, and who cared if only girls and little kids did that shit, as long as he could make it out the door.   
  
Ryan couldn't feel his fingers any more.  
  
“I fucking dare you,” Jake hissed in his ear.  
  
Ryan flinched away from the breath and Jake straightened, stepping away.  
  
“And by the way, you're late.”  
  
Ryan darted his tongue across dry lips and dared a glance at the clock on the far wall. It had only just turned five, the second hand slicing downwards towards fifteen.  
  
“That clock runs slow. Actually about four minutes slow. Which means that you were late.” Jake waited, staring impassively at him and Ryan shrugged uselessly. “What are you gonna say, huh?”  
  
Jake slapped him sharply, and Ryan staggered into the table. His ear was ringing from the sudden pressure, and he felt his head go light, his vision overlaid with a numbing whiteness. Ryan placed a hand on the edge of the table for balance. He really had to sleep soon. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled non-committally through the haze.  
  
Jake grunted. “Have you been smoking?”  
  
“No.”   
  
“No? You stink of pot.”  
  
“I didn't smoke.” Ryan shook his head and the fog cleared a little. His ear was throbbing and he could hardly hear Jake but his own voice was thick and loud in his head.  
  
“You get laid?”  
  
Ryan winced, humiliated. He felt colour rising to his cheeks.  
  
“You fuck that little bitch next door?”  
  
“Don't call her that!” Ryan protested. He lifted his head and looked Jake in the eye.  
  
“Bitch,” Jake repeated, spitting the word. He swung a hand out and tapped Ryan's shoulder, knocking him backwards. “I bet she puts out to anyone,” he said, shoving Ryan again, “just like your ma.”  
  
Ryan slapped Jake's hand away with his left. “Shut the fuck up.”  
  
This time Jake grabbed Ryan's arm so hard he knew he'd have bruises. He could feel Jake's fingers pressing against the bone. His fingers started to tingle - static running up and down the nerves. “You answer me back again in this lifetime and you'll be eating through a straw,” Jake growled. “And this is the last warning you're gonna get, fucker.” He let go suddenly, pushing Ryan backwards at the same time and Ryan stumbled, knocking his elbow on the kitchen counter before he regained his balance. “I don't wanna see you out of your room till Monday,” Jake added, turning his back and walking into the living area. He smacked the back of the recliner as he passed to pick up the remote from the coffee table.  
  
Ryan hurried to his room, shutting the door firmly behind himself and leaning back on it, heart thumping. His hands were shaking again, as much from anger as from fear this time. He paced toward the bed, to the door, to the bed again. He kicked the base of it with the side of his foot. Angry at Jake for pushing him, and at himself for letting Jake get a rise out of him. He was still scared too and that made him angrier.  
  
Wasn't a lifetime of fear enough?  
  
Ryan could feel the desperate frustration expanding like a physical presence inside him - an itch that kept growing until it grew hot and pushed at the walls of his chest.  
  
He punched at the closet door with his right arm, but a spike of pain flared through the muscle of his shoulder and his hand dropped without connecting, flopping bonelessly back against his leg.  
  
Ryan was suddenly aware of a cold sensation in the pit of his stomach.  
  
He lifted his arm again, slowly, not quite to shoulder height and pressed the palm against the closet door. Then he pulled his arm back again, clenching his hand into a fist. He kept it there for a few seconds, taking deep breaths, and launched it forward.  
  
There was the sharp pain again, the sensation that his muscles had suddenly been severed and the quivering jerk of his arm dropping uncontrolled.  
  
He lifted it again and pushed at the closet door. The door bent inwards a little from the weight of his arm but there was no power behind it.  
  
The cold filled his stomach and rose to his chest. Every breath was packed with frozen fear. He sat down on his bed, not trusting his legs to hold him.  
  
His right arm was basically useless. He couldn't throw a punch. He couldn't push someone off him. There was nothing there.  
  
Ryan dropped his head into his hands, gripping fingers tight in his hair.  
  
He had never felt so utterly defenseless before.  



	11. Chapter 11

**Newport,**  
**Fall 2003**  
  
  
Ryan sat on the edge of the bed, head in hands.  He ground his palms into his eyes and yawned. His alarm was still squawking but he didn't have the energy to reach over and subdue it.  
  
Who would have thought that sleeping five hours would make him even more tired than staying awake for three days straight.  
  
He yawned again and swiped at his watering eyes, then he leaned sideways and slapped the alarm until it shut up. He was really beginning to hate that thing. First it was Seth setting it for Seth-Ryan time, now it was Kirsten setting it for punishment time – a fact she had announced briefly at dinner the night before and then refused to elucidate on. From the conversation he had overheard the previous morning, he was reasonably sure they weren't about to throw him out, and Sandy had seemed much less antagonised for the rest of the day . . .  
  
Ryan sighed. He didn't know what to think any more – he was exhausted, confused and emotionally overloaded.  
  
“Oh good, you're up.” Kirsten bustled in to the poolhouse, already dressed in jeans and a casual t-shirt. “And dressed,” she observed, canting her head in confusion, “I thought I just heard the alarm.”  
  
“Uh, you did. I kinda--”  
  
“Slept in your clothes,” Kirsten finished for him. She gave him a knowing look which had probably floored Seth on a few occasions.  
  
Ryan swallowed his guilt. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.”  
  
Kirsten's face fell. “Ryan, I'm not angry at you for sleeping in your clothes. They can be washed and ironed, it's not a problem. But it can't have been comfortable for you.”  
  
Ryan shrugged. “I didn't notice.”  
  
Kirsten pursed her lips and Ryan found himself fidgeting with his watch. He sneaked a look out of the door behind Kirsten, wondering when Sandy was going to come in.  
  
“So what's—” Ryan choked a little on the word, “what's my punishment?”  
  
“You should get changed and meet me in the kitchen, because you're going to be helping me all day with setting up for the function here tonight.” She quirked her head at Ryan's blank look. “Did you forget?”  
  
“Um, sorry.”  
  
“Well, you've had other things on your mind.”  
  
Ryan winced. The headache was back again, a red-hot pain in his temples and down the back of his neck.  
  
Kirsten sighed in frustration. “I didn't mean it like that,” she said with effort, “like you've done something wrong. You've been upset about what happened, that's what I meant.” By the end of it she was wringing her hands together as if there was some dirt there that wouldn't come off. Ryan darted a glance at her while her eyes roamed desperately around the room. Her discomfiture was tangible and it made him uneasy. More uneasy.  
  
Kirsten started straightening the covers on the other side of the bed industriously, an outlet for her nervous energy and an excuse not to look at him, Ryan recognised – his mother had usually busied herself with a drink. He stood up, unsure whether to help or stay out of the way. He opted for the latter, but he felt odd watching Kirsten work with not task to occupy his hands. He couldn't put them in his pockets – that was rude, as Marissa had explained to him only recently after a disproportionate altercation with her mother over it.  
  
Newport was a weird place. Don't wear hats indoors. Never eat soup with a dessert spoon, even if no-one's there to see. If it hadn't been for Theresa's house Ryan didn't know how long he could have gone without finding out that there even was such a thing as a dedicated soup spoon. Don't help the maid.  
  
In Chino rules were much more common sense. 'Don't chew with your mouth open' had been a favourite of Trey's rebellion because it had always irritated Dawn so much. Don't mess around with your friend's girl. Don't piss off the cops. Don't badmouth someone twice your size. Thinking about it, Trey had done all of the above at some point or other – most of them, unfortunately, when Ryan had been there to catch the fallout.  
  
“I know you would have helped with setting up anyway,” Kirsten said, jumping back to the easiest topic, “so that's not technically your punishment. Your punishment is that you have to stay at the party all night, no escaping back in here. And you have to actually talk to people. Okay?”  
  
Ryan took a deep breath. “I guess that's fair.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.” Kirsten finished fluffing the pillows and turned back to him. “Oh, and you'll have to remind me before you get ready tonight to give you your suit.”  
  
“My suit? I already have my suit, or three, actually,” Ryan said, feeling embarrassed just thinking about it.  
  
Kirsten smiled at him. “Well, it was on sale. And Seth won't let me buy him clothes any more. Just be grateful I didn't get you underpants too.”  
  
Ryan coughed awkwardly and looked down, face flushing to a bright pink.  
  
“Right,” Kirsten said, nodding, “don't say underpants, especially not to teenage boys. I'll see you in a few minutes,” she added, heading toward the door.  
  
So he had to mingle with the Newpsies, Ryan thought, staring at his now neat bed. That wasn't so bad. Or it wasn't terrible. Maybe.  
  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
  
“Dude, are you ready for the Newpsies?” Seth asked, shutting the poolhouse door behind him. It was dim outside against the glaring interior lights, but guests had been filtering into the yard for the last half-hour or so. “All geared up to schmooze with Newport's rich and insufferable?”  
  
Ryan turned from the mirror as he tightened his silver tie. He eyed Seth curiously.  
  
“You're right, it's not possible to be ready for the Newpsies.” Seth shook his head. “Dude, is that Armani?” he asked, gesturing at Ryan's suit.  
  
Ryan shrugged. Armani? Ryan didn't even want to know how much Kirsten had spent. The cost of the jacket alone probably could have bought Dawn a car that ran. “I don't know. Your mom gave it to me to wear, I didn't look at the label. Why, does it look stupid?” He patted down the deep blue jacket, smoothing it over his white shirt.  
  
“No, man, you look fine. Are you kidding me? With that classic cut – you're practically screaming elegance – dude, it makes the man,” Seth whispered intently.  
  
 “You've been spending way too much time with Summer,” Ryan observed, readjusting his tie for the fifth time.  
  
“What are you talking about? But whatever - come on, our public awaits.” Seth practically floated out of the poolhouse, head held high, and Ryan trudged after him.  It was a cool night, and a light breeze carried the musky scent of wisteria from the far wall. It was already surprisingly packed outside – guests clumped in small groups around the pool.  
  
Seth spotted Summer ambling out onto the patio from the kitchen, both hands clutched tightly around her purse in front of her as she searched the space for someone she knew. “Hey, Summer."  He waved, attracting her attention. She bit her lip.  
  
“Oh, hey Cohen,” she said, making an effort to sound disinterested. Her gaze fixed on Ryan for an instant and her brow furrowed. “Oh my God, Chino, is that Armani?”  
  
“Yeah, and you should probably knock some sense into him, coz he thought he looked stupid,” Seth said, loud enough that Ryan grimaced and checked the nearby guests surreptitiously to see if they had heard.  
  
“No-one can look stupid in Armani,” Summer said. “Not even you, Cohen, which is saying something.” She trotted up the steps. “And that's a classic cut, it totally speaks of nonchalant elegance and sensuality. It makes the man,” she added as she raised her eyebrows and nodded emphatically. “Ooh, crudités. Hold this, Cohen, I don't want to get avocado dip on it.” Summer shoved her wrap at Seth who took it, stunned. He pressed his lips tightly together and shot little glances at Ryan, who was staring at him, hands resting on his hips.  
  
“Okay, so obviously, Summer is more of an influence than I thought. I feel like I need a lie down--  _or_  go hunting, learn some survival skills. Be a man.” Seth held up a finger. “Actually, I think I overheard the water polo players talking about about mindless violence and smoking bowls, so I should probably go and join them.”  
  
Ryan frowned. “Seth, do you even know what that means?”  
  
“No," Seth answered after a moment's thought, "why, does that matter?”  
  
“Oh, Ryan, there you are.” Kirsten appeared at his arm, a wine glass in her hand, held by its delicate stem. Where she had been all nerves in the poolhouse, she was all poise now, revelling in her element.  Kirsten took his elbow, smiling brightly – and Ryan felt a sudden pang as he remembered that the last time Dawn had smiled at him like that had been the last time he had seen her. “Seth, why don't you go find Anna; Ryan has to talk to people tonight. Come on, Ryan, there's someone I'd like you to meet.”  
  
She directed him away from Seth with a gentle tug at his arm and he followed, casting a final look over his shoulder to see Seth already looking around for Summer. Kirsten brought Ryan over to a tall lady close to the shimmering pool, who was wearing a rather low-cut red dress.  
  
“Taryn, have you met Ryan?” she asked, letting go of Ryan's arm and gliding to a stop.  
  
A nearby group of older gentlemen burst into laughter and one of the men at the back of the group, grey-haired and moustachioed, waved an arm over at them.  
  
“Kirsten, you have to get over here and stop Musgrove from telling these awful stories.”  
  
Kirsten smiled at Taryn and then at Ryan. “If you'll excuse me.” And then she was gone, sweeping through the crowd in her gold satin evening gown.  
  
“So Kirsten's told us  _all_ about you,” Taryn said. She grabbed a glass of wine from a passing waiter and pushed into Ryan's hand. “What I want to know is, is it all true?”  
  
“Uh, that depends what she told you.” He hadn't meant it as a joke but she laughed anyway, sipping at her own glass.  
  
“Aren't you delightful? Julie said you were an ill-mannered thug, but that isn't true, is it?” She laughed again and Ryan got the uncomfortable feeling that she was flirting with him.  
  
“Actually, yeah it is,” he muttered. He offered her a wan smile. “Excuse me.”  The woman looked surprised but didn't question his exit. Ryan made his way to the kitchen, trying to find a surface to put the wine glass down. He could just imagine what the Cohens would say if they caught him with it. But it was crowded in there too, and Ryan couldn't squeeze past the bodies to get to the dining table.  
  
“Well, I  _am_ surprised to see you. I thought you ran away.”  
  
Ryan closed his eyes, steeling himself. “That's not how it happened.” He managed to turn sideways, trying to shut down his emotions. He was exhausted though, and the headache was a constant force against logical thought. He couldn't handle this tonight. Not after the week he'd had.  
  
Caleb smirked. “No need to defend yourself. It's the most sensible thing you've done since you got here.” He swigged at his glass of whiskey, looking over the heads of the people in the room. “Much more sensible than conning your way into my daughters home.”  
  
“That's not how that happened either.”  
  
“Isn't it?” Caleb demanded, deigning to look at Ryan for the first time. “Your alcoholic, drug-addicted mother throws you out of the house because you're so worthless and you cosy up to my tree-smoking son-in-law so that he'll bring you home.”  
  
Ryan clenched his hand around the glass.  
  
“And then you played it up for Kirsten didn't you?” Caleb swung his glass in an arc. “My mother abandoned me, her boyfriend is abusive--”  
  
Ryan flinched, almost dropping the glass. He looked away, past Caleb's shoulder, and that was surrender enough because he heard Caleb's short laugh.  
  
“--and if you try to send me into the system I'll run away? And she fell for it - hook, line and sinker. Well, if you think I'm going to let you get away with it, you've another think coming.” Caleb turned then so that he was beside Ryan, observing the same view. Kirsten was still out on the patio – Ryan caught a glimpse of her dress every so often; Sandy was having an animated conversation with some men Ryan didn't recognise; Seth, Marissa, Anna - nowhere to be seen. He'd settle for Julie right now if she would get him away from Mr Nichol – who was currently grinning around the room as if he was king of all he surveyed. Hell, when it came right down to it, he was. “What's the matter, cat got your tongue? Oh, I forgot, you're practically mute.”  
  
It was unbearably hot in the press of bodies. Ryan dropped his head and shut his eyes again.  
  
“Well? Presumably you're capable of thinking. You'd better be with that $30,000 a year education I'm providing for you.”  
  
He had to get out of there. “I never asked for that.” Ryan wasn't sure if the words even came out. His head was spinning.  
  
“Let me tell you something, boy,” Caleb said lightly, “the only reason that you are still in this home is that Kirsten asked me to accept it. I might very well change my mind at any time, and trust me, if I decided to, I could have you out of here like that.” He clicked his fingers. “I could have you sent back to your mother. Or your father, how would like that? I gather you haven't seen him in a while.”   
  
Ryan drew short breaths in through his nose. “No,” he forced out, “he's in jail.”  
  
“Well, I have some very powerful, and very persuasive friends, Ryan – you remember that.”  
  
Caleb patted him on the shoulder, chuckling. Ryan was sure he was going to be sick.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chino,  
** **Spring 2002**  
  
**  
** Ryan jumped at the unexpected hand on his shoulder, smashing the glass he was holding against the stainless steel sink. It fell into the basin in three perfect pieces, water splashing over the sides and onto his clothes.  
  
“A little edgy there aren't ya, kid? Jake said you were a nervous little bastard now.”  
  
Ryan twisted sideways and pressed himself out of the small space so that the man was in front of him instead of behind. He glared at the linoleum floor at the guy's feet.  
  
Why the hell had he left his room? Death by dehydration wasn't such a bad way to go. At the very least he should have made sure that  _all_  of Jake's party had moved outside for a while.  
  
“What's the matter, Ry? Don't remember me? Name's Frank,” he added as an afterthought, extending a hand.   
  
Ryan ignored the offered hand. “I know,” he said.  
  
Ryan took a moment to look the man over. Frank had grown a scraggly brown moustache during his short stint in Chino Pen. Ryan had always hoped he'd crack in there and let on that Jake was the one behind all the coke deals. After all, he supplied the money, the clients and the venue for 'taster sessions' like tonight. But apparently the man had just made good use of the gym equipment.  
  
Frank sneered, showing crooked yellow teeth. He reached over, easily spanning the small space between the counters and patting Ryan's shoulder again, squeezing bony fingers between the tendons. Ryan winced involuntarily and Frank laughed.  
  
“Shit, you really have turned into a pussy. Three months ago you wouldn't give me anything.”  
  
Three months and a good ten beatings ago Ryan wouldn't have given anyone anything. A short week ago even, he had faced Jake down almost till the end. But things had changed.  
  
Ryan glanced over at the front door. Jake was still outside with the rest of the 'guests', he could--  
  
He could what? Punch the man and take off to his room? With a useless arm and a door with no lock, that was a pretty poor idea. Frank was right – he had turned into a pussy. If Trey could see him right now, even he would call Ryan for what he was.  
  
He heard the screen door go first, slapping against the outside of the house, before the front door flew open and Jake stalked in, followed by Dawn and the guests.  
  
Dawn was wasted, stumbling over herself, one strap of her camisole top down by her elbow, exposing her bra. She leaned heavily on the furniture as she made her way into the room, practically doubled over in her effort to stay on her feet. Half of her hair had come out of the high ponytail and fallen, plastered to her clammy skin.  
  
If Ryan had closed his eyes and wished away every memory of her like that, half of his life would have disappeared.  
  
Frank clapped him on the back again, shoving him forward a foot or so into the middle of the kitchen floor. “Hey Jake, look what I found.”  
  
Ryan stiffened, ripping his eyes from his mother and shifting them to Jake who had just snapped the door shut.  
  
“I told you to stay in your room.”  
  
“Well it looks like he's joined us for the fun,” Frank remarked, amused. He walked forward, clamping his hand around the back of Ryan's neck to pull him along next to him into the living room. Ryan held back as much as he could, eyes still on Jake.  
  
Jake glared at him as he stalked around the sofa towards him. The man delivered a casual slap to Ryan's face that would have sent him into the wall if it wasn't for Frank's unbreakable grip on his neck.  
  
Ryan froze in place, head sideways and down, staring at the ragged carpet. His lip was bleeding. Again.  
  
“Get the fuck out of here.”  
  
“Aw, come on Jake. It must be boring for him being alone in that room all the time.”  
  
There was a long moment of silence before Jake shrugged and turned, walking over to the sofa Dawn had collapsed on and patting her legs to move so that he could sit. She mumbled something incomprehensible and sat up a little, collapsing against Jake the moment he sat down. He laughed and pushed her off as he leaned toward the coffee table.   
  
As usual there were a few empty glass bottles by its feet and open packs of cigarettes on the surface – gold and silver – but most of the space had been taken up by Jake's cocaine paraphernalia. There was a pile of the white rocky substance on a small plate in the middle, and there were numerous glass pipes besides, the ends burnt and cracked from overuse.  
  
The guests - a stringy man and woman - were talking to each other urgently in low voices, chatty from speedballing cocaine all evening. From the rows of obvious purple track marks on their skinny arms it wasn't their first time either, at least not with injections. No-one else spoke while Jake set up another pipe and hit it himself, pushing down on it at the end and bending double in his seat. He sat back again with a satisfied sneer, waving the pipe at Dawn, who gazed at it blearily.  
  
“You want me to hit you up with some, Dawnie?”  
  
She shook her head slowly but Ryan wasn't sure if she even understood the question she was answering. She had that faraway look she got when she'd been hitting the bottle too hard. It was the usual prelude to an extended state of unconsciousness.  
  
Frank steered Ryan forward again, pushing him down onto the free sofa before dropping next to him. He rested an arm along the back, pressing his fingers gently onto Ryan's shoulder in a silent hint. Ryan sat back obediently, but he was tensed, his feet barely six inches from Jake's even pulled back close against the sofa.  
  
“So, you decided to join us, huh, you little bitch?” Jake said, ignoring him in favour of rolling a cocktail.  
  
“I bet he enjoys the company,” Frank joked. Ryan could feel the guy's fingers stroking up and down his shoulder and he clenched his hand hard on the arm of the sofa.  
  
Why the hell had he left his room?   
  
“I keep telling him he needs to relax,” Frank said. Jake finished rolling up the cigarette paper and looked over. His irises were small rings of grey around large black pupils. He was amped, a state which accounted for most of the injuries Ryan had ever sustained in his company. After a few long moments staring at Frank over Ryan's head, he snorted and presented the cocktail to Ryan.  
  
Ryan didn't take it and Jake waved it a little under his nose.  
  
“Smoke it, punk, Frank wants you to relax.”  
  
Ryan just stared at him. Four hours earlier Jake had nearly ripped him a new one for smelling like pot and now he wanted him to freebase cocaine? The guy had to be messing with his head.  
  
“No, thanks.”  
  
Jake's lips flattened against each other, suddenly pissed off. “I told you to stay in your room. The minute you came out I could have pounded you into the ground, but I didn't. If you really want a fucking beating, you just keep disrespecting me, coz I'm ready to go any time you are,” he said, lowering his voice at the end until it was little more than a hiss.  
  
Jake's guests were still talking to each other, completely oblivious, and Dawn was crumpled into the corner of the sofa.  
  
Ryan didn't answer.  
  
Frank laughed, his arm shaking against Ryan's shoulder. “He's still a quiet motherfucker, isn't he, Jake?”  
  
“The kid's got a fucking mouth on him when he wants to,” Jake muttered. He withdrew the cocaine-laced cigarette and put it to his lips, flicking on a lighter.  
  
Ryan breathed out a long, slow sigh of relief. At least he'd given up on that.  
  
“There's two ways this can go,” Jake said, puffing on the cocktail once and holding the smoke in, “either you smoke this,  _or_  I fuck you up so bad you can't move and then Frank'll inject you with this.” He picked up a syringe from the table, white liquid pressing the space between the plunger and the needle. Jake held out the cocktail again and this time Ryan took it.  
  
Frank patted the top of his head, and Ryan inhaled.  
  
The rush hit him hard – a wave of electricity that overloaded his brain and left him momentarily without his senses. He was blind and deaf, without touch. His heart skipped a beat, then jumped into a faster rhythm.  
  
“Fuck,” he heard himself whisper – the only sound in the vast emptiness.  
  
Frank smacked him on the shoulder, knocking him forward, his laugh echoing in Ryan's ears, and then everything came back.  
  
But it was all wrong.  
  
The lights were too bright, the sounds too loud, Frank's polyester shirt too rough against the skin of his neck.  
  
“Come on, finish up,” Frank said, shoving the cocktail in Ryan's face. He flinched backwards but had nowhere to go. Ryan blinked and focused, feeling his heart begin to settle down a little. He took hold of the cigarette again, wondering when exactly he had let go of it.  
  
They weren't going to let him go until he finished the damn thing.  
  
Get it over with.  
  
His hands were still shaking. He felt as if his whole body was vibrating, the muscles trying to jump out of his skin. Ryan looked at his hands again, watched the white smoke curling up from the end of the cocktail, less than an inch from his fingers now. Not much more now. But he didn't know how much more he could take.  
  
A deep feeling of unease had settled on him – an intense anxiety that gripped his lungs in a vice. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.  
  
Ryan closed his eyes and rubbed his face, trying to gain his senses again, but everything had left him. Frank was whispering things in his ear that he couldn't understand anymore. He could barely even hear him over the thumping of his heart and his panicked breaths  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
“Man, you gave him too much,” Frank said, but he was laughing when Jake waved a dismissive hand. He was practically lying on top of Dawn on the other sofa, a hand underneath her bra, kissing her possessively. She was virtually unresponsive, but still moaning incomprehensibly.  
  
“Get off her.”  
  
“You gonna give papa some head, Dawnie?” Jake's voice was obscenely loud for a moment, then it faded once again into the haze.  
  
“Leave her alone, you sick fuck.”  
  
The cocktail burned Ryan's fingers and he flailed, dropping it onto the carpet where it smouldered. Ryan watched Frank's disembodied hands as they picked it up and dropped it onto the table.   
  
“You're way too much fun for your own good, Ry.” Frank laughed again. Frank was always laughing. “We should do this again.”  
  
Maybe it was Frank's laughter that was wrong, because something was still really wrong. Ryan didn't like this.  
  
He buried his head in his hands, shutting out the bright lights and the sight of Jake molesting his almost unconscious mother. His fingers were cold suddenly, his face, his back, and when he pulled them away again they were clammy. He wiped them on his pants and touched his face again. He was sweating, but it was icy, the cold increasing the tremors which wracked his body. Ryan thought his bones would shake loose.  
  
“Fuck,” he moaned again. He felt tears spring into his eyes. He hated this.  
  
When the hell was this supposed to end?  
  
“Yeah, I definitely think you gave him too much.”  
  
“I'm gonna go put your mother to bed.” Jake yanked Dawn up from the sofa and half-led, half-carried her toward the archway into the hall. Her camisole top was abandoned on the sofa now, and Jake unzipped his jeans as he walked.  
  
Ryan launched himself up from the sofa. “I need some air.” The room was so sharply focused it seemed unreal. He started to the door and his legs were heavy, as if subject to extra gravity that threatened to crush him into the ground. There didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the air to sustain him either, despite the long, gulping breaths he was drawing.  
  
Ryan fumbled with the door and stepped outside. There was a cool breeze which froze the sweat on his skin.  
  
He could hear grunted moaning from somewhere, coming in waves on the breeze.  
  
“Fuck, bitch, get the hell on with it.” The sound of skin slapping against skin.  
  
The master bedroom window must be open, Ryan concluded. He turned away and tripped down the stairs, landing on his elbows on the grass. His limbs were too heavy to stand again so he stayed where he was, on all fours in the front yard. As his head pounded and his stomach churned wildly, Ryan couldn't remember ever feeling worse in his life.


	13. Chapter 13

**Newport,**  
**Fall 2003**  
  
  
Ryan felt awful.

He’d grabbed at the first unwatched bottle he’d seen as he made his escape, circling the house through the small gap by the garage. And he was hidden now on the other side of the wall of the family room, chugging at a bottle of '47 Bordeaux.

He was going to get into trouble. He knew this – for running out of his punishment, sneaking off, drinking underage: drinking priceless 60 year-old wine underage. But as unnerving as the prospect of yet more trouble with the Cohens was, this was better than the alternative. Because if he’d stayed in that room he would have slugged Mr Nichol, and the punishment for that was guaranteed to exceed the penalty for this.

He sat back against the wall, head spinning. He wasn’t drunk, he was just much more buzzed than he should have been. It seemed that his few months in Newport had really turned him soft. Then again, he wasn’t used to the fancy stuff, just whatever he could get his hands on through Trey or Turo, and that was usually the cheapest generic vodka, or the nearest bottle available at five-finger discount.

Ryan turned the bottle round in his hands. He shouldn’t have taken off, but Caleb . . . Caleb reminded him of his father - AJ, Dan, Jake - a dozen other men whose hatred of him had been measured with fists.  He rubbed at his eyes, assaulted by the all-familiar headache and a general feeling of nausea, whether from the alcohol or the encounter he wasn’t sure. Either way it would be safer to stay away from the party for the time being.

The noise from the gathering filtered around the corner, into the tight space between the house walls and the garden wall where Ryan was crushed between them. There was the constant babble of inane chatter, gossip and business deals. Ryan hadn’t heard anyone calling for him yet, so maybe they hadn’t noticed he was missing. Or maybe they were calling the cops right now because he’d up and disappeared again. If they did, Child Services would pull him out so fast his feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

Shit. Nothing was ever easy.

Ryan bowed his head to his chest and closed his eyes, willing the stress and the sickness away. He needed to go back to the party, finish out his punishment. But all he could think about was Caleb, and the things Caleb had said, and the knot in his stomach tightened impossibly. He couldn’t go back in there.

He drained the last of the bottle and put it down beside him, wiggling his tie loose before laying his arms across his knees. After a few minutes Ryan reached down and pulled his shoes and socks off, stuffing the latter into the toe of the polished black leather Oxfords. The grass was a little damp from the dew and the feeling was nice under his feet. You couldn’t do that in Chino, anything could be hiding in the grass: trash, piss, glass, even used needles. And that was just his back yard. He snorted to himself in bitter amusement. He dug his feet in, trying to concentrate on the coolness between his toes instead of the drumming in his temples.

And that was another crime, wasn’t it? Sitting on damp grass in an Armani suit. If Summer found out about this she’d probably kill him.

God, he felt sick.

Ryan put his hand to his pocket automatically before realising that he didn’t have a pack of cigarettes on him. They were still in the poolhouse, just around the corner. Not that he could go and get them. Not that they wouldn’t make him feel worse anyway. Maybe he should stop smoking, like Sandy had asked, if his automatic reaction when he was stressed was to smoke. He wasn’t really much better than his mother in that respect.

And that was an association he could have done without at this particular moment.

The slamming of several car doors put Ryan in mind to go back out to the driveway. Maybe he could bum a quick smoke off someone. And if he was technically still mingling with the leaving Newpsies, getting caught out of the party might not be so bad.

Leaving the bottle where it was – the less incriminating evidence, the better – Ryan climbed back past the garage to the drive. His head was still spinning and he had a little trouble with balance, but the driveway was empty of Newpsies. The porch light had been switched onto permanent for the night and it flooded the area. Ryan patted his pocket again as he made his way to sit on the porch steps, frowning when there still weren’t any cigarettes there.

It wasn’t long before the door opened behind him and another couple of Newpsies spilled out of the party. A man and a woman with their arms entangled. Ryan stood, brushing off his pants and stepping back out of the way, and when the man gave him a genuine smile, Ryan took a chance and asked for a cigarette.

The man’s wife seemed unsure but the man just smiled at him again and pulled a pack out of his jacket pocket.

“Heat getting to you, huh, son? It’s a little crowded in there.”

Ryan took the offered cigarette with a grateful nod. “Yeah, I’m not really good at these things. Uh, you got a light?”

The man passed him a matchbook wordlessly, waited while Ryan took one out and struck it. He sucked in the bitter smoke and handed them back, dropping the used match onto the driveway. “Thanks.” It seemed counterintuitive that he could breathe a little freer, but the cigarette eased some of the tense cramping in his stomach.

“You go to Harbor, don’t you?” the man asked. His wife had linked her arm through his again as if to signal him to leave.

A breeze had sprung up, cooling the already cool air, and Ryan shivered. “Yeah. I mean - yes, sir.”

“Stevens,” the man corrected. He held his hand out and Ryan shook it. “You must know my son, Zach? He’s on the water polo team.”

Ryan had to think about it, scanning his memory of Harbor's jocks. “Sorry, I’ve never met him. I only play soccer,” he said, finally managing to put names to all the players who had assaulted him on the beach that second night.

Mr Stevens smiled broadly. “Oh, you must be the new striker we got this season – Atwood, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan affirmed, waiting for the standard reaction. But Mr Stevens just slapped him heartily on the shoulder.

“I’m looking forward to your next game. Vista, right?”

“Actually, I think it’s Corona. And I’m afraid Ryan’s been benched for the next game.” Ryan dropped the cigarette purely from shock. He hadn’t even heard the door open. Sandy clapped Ryan on the back as the other man had done, throwing a wide smile at the Stevens.

“Leaving so soon, Congressman?”

Mr Stevens smiled in return. “I have an important committee meeting tomorrow.”

“Oh, well, good luck with that.”

Ryan stared at his feet, and it slowly made its way into his fuzzy brain that he hadn't put his shoes back on. The nausea converted to pure dread in the pit of his stomach. He had to fight the need to shrug Sandy's hand from his back. He was in so much trouble.

“Needed some fresh air, huh?” Sandy asked, seemingly good-natured, as the Stevens' car pulled back out of the driveway.

Ryan nodded, still staring at his feet, willing his vision to stay sharp. “I'm sorry.” He couldn't believe he'd been begging a smoke off a congressman in bare feet.

“No need to apologise,” Sandy said, hiking up his pants to sit on the steps. Ryan felt his balance alter as Sandy took his hand away, and only then realised that the man had been holding him upright. He bit his lip hard. “You know how much I hate these things. Newpsies,” Sandy laughed, “it's like they were bred just to torture us, don't you think?”

“Mr Nichol certainly was,” Ryan mumbled, not really thinking about what he had said until Sandy chuckled again.

“You didn't actually talk to him, did you? Because even by Kirsten's standards that's far beyond the parameters of your punishment.”

“It wasn't exactly voluntary.” Ryan put his hands in his pockets, slowly. The cigarette he had dropped was still smouldering on the driveway, but his vision was unreliable, and he had to blink a few times before he could place its exact location. His stomach was churning badly now, more stressed because of Sandy's apparently apathetic reaction to his disobedience. The waiting, that had always been the worst part.

Sandy huffed quietly. “Well, unfortunately, I can tell you that he probably meant most of what he said.”

Ryan looked up, panic hitting him full force. “He can't--” he started, cutting himself off viciously with a sharp shake of the head. “He can't do that, can he?”

Sandy shot him a surprised look and leaned forward. “Do what?”

“Make me live with my dad.”

“Your father's in jail,” Sandy stated.

Ryan shrugged. “Mr Nichol didn't seem too worried about that.”

Sandy frowned and Ryan shook himself, murmuring another quiet apology which the man waved off. “I'm not mad at you Ryan. I can understand you leaving. And there are parties every week - you'll have plenty of opportunities to make it up.”

“I'm sorry.” Ryan pressed a hand to his forehead, leaning over slightly and closing his eyes. “I don't feel too good.”

“Really, let me see.” Sandy was next to him, pushing his clammy hand out of the way and pressing a warm palm against Ryan's forehead. “You're freezing,” he observed. Ryan shivered again.

“I don't know what's wrong with me,” he whispered.

“It's Caleb,” Sandy said, his tone still light-hearted. “God knows he always makes me sick when I have to talk to him.”

Ryan swallowed again and shook his head slowly.

“Stress'll do this to you. How about you just go lie down?”

“Yeah,” Ryan answered, cracking his eyes open a bit and taking in Sandy's expression. “That'd be good.” He fixed his eyes on the main doors, then looked down at his watch. There were still a good three hours left before the party would begin to wind down. He'd barely managed an hour of his punishment. “I'm sorry.”

“Hey, no problem,” Sandy was holding his arm and turning him toward the door. “You know, we're not going to just let you go, kid, no matter what Caleb says. He has a very high opinion of his abilities. Kirsten would kill him if he did anything to hurt you, and he knows it – he wouldn't dare.”

The doors must have opened again because suddenly the party was much too loud.

“I'm kinda drunk,” Ryan admitted, thinking that if there was going to be a punishment, he'd prefer it came now so that he could go and lie down in peace. He waited for Sandy's usual disappointed sigh, but instead the man just laughed again.

“I know that. People who come out for air don't normally lose their shoes in the process. We'll worry about that part tomorrow. For now, let's just get you to bed.”

Ryan just nodded and let Sandy take him inside. Sometimes it was easier not to fight it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chino,**  
**Spring 2002**  


It was black when Ryan awoke with a jolt of panic, dread crushing his lungs. It was all shadow on shadow and a wash of disconnected memories that he struggled to piece together. His hands were shaking and he didn't know why. He sat up slowly, clutching hard to the ground underneath him, trying to see out into the blackness and remember where he was.

The softness under his hands was the first clue. He was in his bed, in his room, not outside. He didn't know how he'd got there. Ryan shut his eyes, concentrating on the jumbled memories, and tried to replay the night.

There was broken glass, and a slap in the face, and his mom half-undressed on the living room couch.

There were drugs, and ice in his veins, and an anxiety that still ate at him.

There was cool grass under his knees and Jake's rough hand on his arm, yanking him to his feet and dragging him through the house.

_Stupid son of a bitch._

There were whispered words there, threats, and Ryan's repeated, pathetic apologies.

_I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm sorry._

Ryan opened his eyes wide again, rubbed a hand across his face that was cold and clammy and covered with dirt and grass. He shivered, feeling the cold right down his spine.

Ryan got up and searched for a sweatshirt by touch – not wanting to risk reminding Jake of his presence by turning on the light. In a bundle of clothes at the bottom of his closet was his grey zip-up hoodie – a bonus because it would go easy on his ruined shoulder. Whatever the hell was wrong with it. Ryan pulled it on and zipped it up as close as it would get to his neck, bunching the hood close at the back with his left hand. He was still shivering, but he hoped it would improve over time. He hoped he wasn't sick. The last thing he needed was to be stuck all day in the house with Jake on the other side of the wall.

By the time the pitch black lightened into the misty grey of early morning, Ryan was warmer, huddled on his bed under the comforter, the flat pillow between his back and the wall. But when he'd stopped noticing how cold he was, he'd started noticing how thirsty he was. He remembered that he'd never managed to get that drink the night before, and his throat was so dry now that it hurt to swallow. He needed to go get a drink but Ryan didn't dare leave the room. Considering what had happened last time he'd tried it, he wasn't willing to try it again just yet – especially if it meant waking up Jake, who slept light at the best of times without the added buzz of coke. Jake didn't take at all well to being woken up.

It had now been almost a week since the guy had kicked his ass liberally all over the living room floor. The wounds on Ryan's back were beginning to heal up properly now and only hurt when pressed - from the heavy bruising the belt-buckle had made - although the cuts were still an angry red when he looked at them in the mirror. His face wasn't honestly much better; gradually making the transition from purple to a greeny-yellow that would mar his features for weeks yet.

He was fourteen years old and the various stages of bruises were more important to him than when he was next going out with his friends.

Not that he could say he had a lot of friends. Not real ones who would let him crash over for more than one night or explain a class to him that he missed. They were party buddies, smoking buddies, shallow and uninterested. It said something that Trey was the most reliable person in his life besides Theresa – who was beautiful and kind and understanding, usually – and there were still things that he couldn't say to her, even if they could be said.

It was the padding of bare feet on carpet in the hallway outside that reminded Ryan of the progression of morning. His mom would sleep in after her drinking binge the night before, but Jake was always up early when he'd been hitting the coke. He listened to the man take a shower – the rusty pipes squeaking in protest at the water pressure – then go back into the master bedroom. Obviously he couldn't wake Dawn for a little morning gratification because he was back out and into the kitchen within a minute.

Ryan clambered out from underneath the covers and wandered unsteadily over to the window. He wasn't sure whether it was the lack of sleep that had made him fuzzy or his mild cocaine overdose the night before. He almost laughed at the absurdity of that, except the memory was too painful for it. When Ryan drew the curtain the day outside was still grey – the despondent grey of twilight. It would be a few hours yet before he could leave for school.

He contemplated getting changed but couldn't find any clean shirts and he definitely wasn't up to the agonising adventure that putting on a t-shirt would present. He compensated by just changing his boxers and pants and then rooted around in his dresser for a can of deodorant. It wasn't as if he had slept in his clothes, anyway, just been passed out in them for a little while.

That shouldn't have been something he ever had to say, but a lot of things in his life fell into that category – starting with his father pistol-whipping a clerk in a rundown Chino 7-11, and ending with him being the resident punching bag for every frustrated man that his mother let through the door.

Ryan scratched at his wrist, wondering what to do next. He was still thirsty – way too thirsty to ignore. And Jake was up. If he had to venture out there, it was best to do it now, before the guy started on the next round of coke and beer and got even more irritable. If that was possible. Ryan swallowed again, grimacing at the feel of his sandpaper throat.

His hand was shaking as he turned the handle of his door, and it scared him that he was so anxious. His heart was pounding and he hadn't even made it out of the room. He should just drink some water from the bathroom sink – he'd done it before, and although it didn't taste good it was probably better for his health than wandering into a room that had Jake in it.

Ryan walked quietly towards the bathroom, started pushing open the door.

“What are you doing up?”

He jumped and spun, almost backing right into the bathroom before accidentally knocking his shoulder on the doorframe. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, anywhere but at the man that was stood in the living room, beer in hand. Jake was dressed in just sweatpants again, muscles more defined by the sheen of water from his shower. He looked like the commercials for Calvin Klein that they ran on the public bus – handsome, toned and incredibly intimidating.

“Uh, I couldn't sleep,” Ryan stammered, feeling more pathetic than usual that Jake could reduce him to this trembling mess. The cold sweat was back again.

Jake looked at him curiously. Then he shook his head and blanked him, turning away. “So take a piss and get back to your room.” He moved out of sight, and Ryan could guess that he was in his recliner again because a second later the television clicked on. Ryan backed the rest of the way into the bathroom gratefully, shutting and locking the door behind him. He ran the faucet and stuck his mouth under it, swallowing as much as he could while trying not to taste it. It was stale and dusty and cold but it was good. Ryan shut the faucet off again and stood there for a minute, just swallowing, letting the moisture work down his throat. It felt better, but he was colder now than he had been before and his heart hadn't settled. He made his way back to his room as silently as possible, heaving a sigh of relief when the door closed behind him without anything coming from Jake. No yelling, no insults, no pounding feet headed towards his room.

For lack of anything better to do, Ryan pulled out his backpack from under the bed and went through the contents. There were a couple of homework assignments noted down that he hadn't bothered attempting yet. He dug in the bottom of the bag for an unbroken pencil and started working through the Math questions that he'd been set. After working through them, scribbling half of them out and re-working them, Ryan shut the textbook in frustration. His English assignment was an essay to 'discuss the role of family in  _To Kill A Mockingbird_ '. It was due in roughly five hours and Ryan hadn't started it yet. He flipped through the book. It was a cast-off from Trey who had borrowed it from the library only after Dawn - during one of her more lucid periods - had screamed at him about his grades and marched him down there. Ryan dreaded to think what the fine would be up to by now.

Trey had taken the book to school once and had underlined a grand total of one line, probably because a teacher had stood there glaring at him until he had. Sometime previously some kid had gone through and highlighted every instance of the 'n' word, and drawn handy little illustrations, too. Ryan frowned and threw the book back in his bag. What the hell did he know about the role of family anyway? Maybe he should write  _that_  on a piece of paper and hand it in.

The loud jingle from the seven o'clock news cut through the house before Jake quickly switched channels again, interrupting some catchy headline about the growing trouble in the Middle East. Ryan took the cue to re-pack his bag and slung it over his good shoulder.

There was still no sign of Dawn when he left his room for a second time, closing the door behind him out of habit and treading softly into the living room. He stood in the doorway for a moment, calculating the best route out of the house. The quickest would take him between Jake and the TV, the longest would take him around the back, close to the recliner that Jake was slouched in as usual – bare feet up on the coffee table, his heels picking up loose shreds of marijuana and rolling tobacco.

Jake didn't look at him, didn't acknowledge his presence, just put the beer bottle to his lips and swigged at it, eyes fixed on the television. Ryan opted for the quick route, not taking his eyes off the ground until he was outside and down the steps, pulse thumping, shoulders drawn tight. He hoped the walk would ease his tension a little, help him to forget his nervousness.

“Hey, Ryan.”

Theresa. Ryan felt himself relax, just minutely. He looked up, shrugged both shoulders and offered her a wan smile. “Hey.”

She frowned and Ryan held his breath, stopped moving. He didn't think he could take anyone else being mad at him. But the frown broke and she smiled back, though it was tense. “I've always said green's your colour,” she said, flapping a hand up and pointing at his face before it dropped again, smacking the side of her thigh through her jeans. “But I should tell you that purple and green is totally last year,” she shook her head and when Ryan smiled again – a hitch of a grin – she did too. “So, are you gonna be a gentleman and walk me to school?”

“Yeah, why not?” he answered quietly, coming alongside her as she started up the sidewalk.

“Oh, that's romantic. It's nice to know you enjoy spending time with me,” Theresa complained, but she was still smiling, and her tone didn't hurt like it did sometimes when he knew she meant it. “What, have you got a monocle fitting you need to be at?”

“No, that's later,” Ryan answered, joining the bickering out of form. He dug his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath, as if in soaking in the warm air through his lungs could warm him up, stop the shaking and the fear that wouldn't leave him.

Theresa must have noticed because she stopped smiling. She bit her lip, casting surreptitious glances behind them to his house, although it was hidden now by the large two-story buildings which lined the upper half of the street. After a while she reached over and coaxed his hand from his pocket, twining her fingers with his and holding tight. Ryan squeezed back, feeling suddenly lost and alone, as if he was tethered to reality only by her touch, and that letting go would leave him desolate, adrift in the darkness.


	15. Chapter 15

**Newport,  
Fall 2003**

 

Marissa wiggled her fingers between Ryan's, settling them into a more comfortable position and squeezing again, lightly.

He gave her a side-long glance and she smiled shyly at him. He tried to smile back, but he wasn't sure that it came out right. He still had a hell of a hangover from the wine the night before, which hadn't done his permanent headache any good at all.

Ryan took the steps up to the school building one at a time and Marissa matched his pace in her high heels, using her hold on him to help balance herself as she trotted upwards. Every so often his hand bumped her leg – her skirt and her bare skin velvet-smooth against his knuckles.

“I missed you all weekend,” she told him, reaching up a self-conscious hand to tuck some hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, me too,” Ryan replied.

“How about you come see me tonight? My dad's going out, so it'll just be you and me,” she said, making her tone suggestive even though Ryan knew they'd be doing nothing more than a little heavy making out. Not that he minded, he thought, as he watched her lips moving. “We can watch a movie, eat some take-out . . . kinda like a date?” Marissa pressed her lips together, waiting, and Ryan couldn't say no.

“That sounds great, but I have to check with Sandy first.”

Marissa let go of his hand to push open the homeroom door, and Ryan felt the aching loss in the coolness where her touch had been.

“Sure. Give me a call tonight, let me know.”

Ryan pulled out her chair for her, set himself in the one beside her and promptly zoned out through the announcements. He wasn't sure what Sandy's reaction would be. Wasn't sure if the talk he'd been dreading for days would finally come that night. So they weren't going to throw him out, yet, and maybe Sandy wouldn't hit him – but the man was bound to do  _something_ , even if it was only a hardass lecture. Because maybe Sandy really could forget about his behaviour at the party, but there was still plenty of other stuff to be mad about, and Ryan didn't know how easily it was going to be forgiven, if it could be forgiven at all.

It all came down to the age-old conflict of words versus body language. And body language rarely lied. Sandy's body language hadn't lied last night when he'd been gentle and understanding. But it hadn't lied after the social workers' visit when he'd been furious and wanting to hit something, even if he hadn't known it himself.

Ryan had been overanalysing the situation for days and always it ran in circles. He didn't  _think_  Sandy would throw him out, he didn't  _think_ Sandy would hit him, but there were too many men who had to let it go. It had always been a matter of when, not if, and he was too tired to fight his instincts at every turn.

The day progressed slowly, a procession of classes that Ryan couldn't concentrate on because of the endless anxiety that had taken hold of him. He handed in homework like the rest of his classmatess: a Maths assignment he hadn't really taken in; a Biology paper that had been mostly copied out of the textbook; a pitiful attempt at an English essay. Ryan had spent days laying on the Cohens' bed in the Cohens' poolhouse too sick to his stomach with worry to be able to give anything but a scant concentration to his work. The last thing he needed was a bad grade, but he hadn't been able to get his mind to focus on school.

Ryan passed lunch listening to Summer and Seth bicker, Summer and Anna bicker and held on tightly to Marissa's hand, picking at his lunch unenthusiastically.

Sandy just didn’t work the way Ryan was used to. He didn’t know what to think about the man. With all the other men in his life the best policy had been to apologise or shut the hell up. Sandy always wanted to know what he was thinking, why he did something, why he didn’t think about the impact of his actions. Which was ridiculous, because Ryan felt like he spent ninety percent of his time measuring his every word and every action, making sure he didn’t screw this up like he had screwed up everything else.

“Ryan?”

Ryan blinked and looked up to see everyone watching him with concern.

“Are you okay?” Marissa looked scared, wary, still unsure of her bad-boy boyfriend when it came to situations like this. Emotions frightened her.

He looked down at his plate. The cheese from his sandwich was a malformed puddle amid a pile of pulped lettuce where he had been absently crushing it against the plate. He put it down and looked at Marissa again.

“I’m fine.” The stock answer, but without much feeling.

“Didn’t you and Seth’s dad figure everything out? I thought you were going to talk.”

“Not yet,” he mumbled. If he could avoid that conversation forever . . .

“Dude,” Seth was shaking his head, placating.

Ryan pulled his hand from Marissa’s and stood. He didn’t want to hear that everything would be okay and he was worrying about nothing. Seth was Sandy’s son, but the man had no obligations when it came to Ryan. Seth couldn’t understand. Seth had never had his ass kicked for dripping water on the floor, for leaving his bike on the porch, for coming home early. Seth couldn’t understand that no matter how desperately Ryan wanted to trust Sandy, he just couldn’t. Not completely.

“I’m going to the library, I’ve got work to do.”

By the time Marissa dropped Ryan and Seth at the end of their driveway at the end of the day, Ryan was so tense he was almost shaking. The BMW was at the top of the drive, a giant signal of what was to come. When he walked into the house to find Sandy waiting in the kitchen for him, the nausea hit him hard.

Sandy gave Seth a look that sent his son scampering up to his room before he opened his mouth. He greeted Ryan with a much too jovial ‘hey, kid’ and pointed at a stool at the breakfast bar.

“Grab yourself a drink and sit down.”

Ryan hesitated for a long moment. Sandy’s shoulders were a little tense but he was otherwise relaxed, leaning back against the kitchen basin, chewing at a bagel. Maybe if he gave the man the answers he wanted, didn’t piss him off any more, it would be all right. Dropping his bag onto the dining table, Ryan obediently retrieved a bottle of grape Snapple from the refrigerator and sat on the stool Sandy had indicated.

“First off, I found your shoes,” Sandy said, nodding at the floor by the table.

Ryan twisted slightly, saw the dress shoes he had abandoned by the side of the house. He hadn’t seen them there when he’d put his bag down. Why hadn’t he seen them? Why would Sandy have gone down the side of the house? This wasn’t starting off well. Ryan swallowed, faced the man. He wondered if he should just apologise now, or wait until Sandy had listed everything that he’d done wrong for the past week or so.

“I also found a bottle of wine. Well, an empty one. But I’m not mad,” Sandy reassured quickly at Ryan’s sudden nervous look. “You already admitted as much.” Sandy brushed the crumbs off his rumpled shirt and leaned forward to pick up another bagel, shoving it in the bagel slicer and then working it with schmear expertly. “It was a stupid thing to do, Ryan,” he added, “but I can let it go as long as you promise to  _never_  do it again. I’m not even going to start on how dangerous it was for you with your probation.”

Ryan ducked his head, scratching at the Snapple label with long fingernails. He needed to cut them again, he thought. “I know,” he managed, “I promise. I won’t.”

“What worries me most is that you went and drank alone. I’m hoping it’s just because circumstance forced it, and not because you’re habitually a solo drinker. But I can forget about that too, seeing as you will never be drinking again before you turn legal,” Sandy said, emphasising the final point.

Ryan nodded, understanding the barely disguised order.

“I get it – you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and then Caleb . . . Putting aside everything that’s gone on in the past week, can you tell me what got you so upset last night? What did that rat tell you?”

Ryan twisted the cap on the bottle loose, then tightened it again. Sandy was still silent, expecting an answer. Ryan was confused. He was the one who’d broken the rules and got drunk. What did it matter what Caleb had said? “I . . . it’s nothing. I thought—“

“That I’d be dying to get you on your own so I could yell at you?” Another silence, this time demanding explanation.

“Well, yeah,” Ryan stuttered, “I mean, I know I screwed up, big time.”

“Yeah, you did,” Sandy announced heavily, laying both palms flat on the surface in front of him and leaning further in to Ryan’s peripheral vision. “But it’s not going away, we can discuss that some other time. Right now I want to know what got to you so bad that you abandoned your responsibility to go get drunk, because that isn’t at all like you.”

Ryan dipped his head further, avoiding Sandy’s piercing gaze. He couldn’t get his head around this place. His mom would have said it was exactly like him. But his mom wouldn’t have cared that he got drunk or in a fight as long as it didn’t interfere with her life, his mom would have been the first to throw him out of the house. None of this stuff would have raised an eyebrow back in Chino. Here there were so many new rules that he wasn’t sure he’d ever remember them all. “Really, it’s not important,” he tried again, desperate, almost wishing that Sandy would hit him, just so that he could finally understand what his place was.

“Yes it is,” Sandy replied, calm and measured, as if he had fully expected that answer. “You were very upset last night, Ryan, that’s very important to me – to all of us. You said before that Caleb threatened to send you back to your father. Are you still concerned about that?”

Ryan’s throat went dry suddenly. He gripped the bottle of Snapple tighter, needing to drink, but with Sandy staring at him like that he couldn’t bring himself to make that large a movement, to be so conspicuous. He shrugged instead. “I don’t know. I guess. I mean he can, can’t he?”

Sandy nodded to himself, an acknowledgement of the anticipated response. “I highly doubt that even with all Caleb’s shady connections, he could pull off a stunt like that. Aside from the fact that he wouldn’t dare try. I told you last night that Kirsten would kill him. I didn’t mean that figuratively.” Sandy brushed the worry off lightly and Ryan felt some small measure of reassurance that he seemed so genuinely unconcerned about the issue. “What else did he say to you,” Sandy asked then, “because if I know Caleb, he wouldn’t have stopped there.”

“He . . . mentioned some things,” Ryan admitted hesitantly, barely whispering, the words grating through his parched throat, “things I don’t like to talk about, or people to know, really.”

Sandy nodded again, encouraging. “What kind of things?”

Ryan found himself studiously interested in the Snapple bottle again. It was easier to talk to an inanimate object, imagine his guardian wasn’t in the room, listening. “Uh . . . things that might be in my file . . . about AJ, or some of the others,” Ryan continued, hoping the clues would be enough that he wouldn’t have to say the word.

It was. Sandy straightened in surprise, mouth slightly agape. “He used abuse as a reason to insult you – threaten you?” Sandy’s voice came out tight, a testament to how much anger he was holding back, and Ryan found himself tensing further in response.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Look, it’s no big deal. I can handle it.”

“I’m going to kill him. And believe me, when I’m done, Kirsten will want a piece too.” Sandy stepped away from the counter, grabbing his car keys and Ryan shot up from his stool.

“No. You don’t need to do that. I don’t want to be the reason you guys are fighting. Kirsten doesn’t need to be arguing with her dad over me. It really doesn’t matter.”

Sandy slowly placed the keys back on the counter. Ryan looked down at his hands. They weren’t shaking, but he felt like they were, like his whole body was trembling.

“All right. I won’t tell Kirsten. But I’d be fighting with him anyway. No skin off my nose; telling Caleb where to go is one of my favourite hobbies.” There was a hint of a laugh in Sandy’s voice, but it faded quickly. “Is that everything, Ryan?”

“Yeah. Well, the rest of it was . . . it didn’t bother me.”

“Okay. What is it?” he added, when Ryan didn’t make a break for the poolhouse but stood there, shifting his weight.

“Uh, it’s probably stupid to ask,” Ryan began, unsure even why he was asking except that Marissa had really wanted him to. She’d been missing him, she’d said, and she needed him. “I mean, I didn’t even do my punishment last night, and then with what happened, I guess I violated your probation, so I’m probably grounded again.”

“What is it, Ryan?” Sandy asked again, a definite note of amusement in there that time as Ryan scrambled over his words. Is that what Seth felt like all the time? Like he needed an act of God to stop his nervous rambling.

“Marissa kinda wanted me to go over tonight, like a date. Not even studying, and it’s a school night, so obviously it’s a no. I’ll just go and sit in the poolhouse until dinner.” Ryan grabbed the bottle of Snapple and made for the doors, feeling his cheeks heat up with embarrassment.

“Hold it.”

Ryan drew to a sharp stop by the patio doors.

“Go to Marissa’s. Take a night off, try to relax, and we’ll talk about the rest of it in a couple of days.”

Ryan stood and stared at Sandy until the man shooed him out of the door.  
  
  



	16. Chapter 16

**Chino,  
** **Spring 2002** ****  


 

 

Ryan knocked on Theresa's door – three sharp raps – and then stood back on the porch, waiting. A short while later he heard her running down the stairs, dropping to a sedate pace as she hit the hallway. Ryan saw the curtain beside the window twitch before Theresa finally pulled the door open and smiled warmly at him, pretending complete nonchalance.

He stepped forward and pulled his arm from behind his back, offering the meagre bunch of flowers with an embarrassed look. Theresa's eyes shot wide with surprise and then she laughed.

“What are those?” she asked, pulling the limp weeds from his hands. She raised an eyebrow as she inspected them.

“Uh, dandelions?” he ventured, wincing. “I picked them off the verge. I figure it's the closest you're gonna get to flowers from me on a date.”

Theresa coloured too as she remembered their misunderstanding a few days previously. “Funny,” she said, sounding serious, but her eyes were laughing and Ryan dared a tiny smile. Theresa bit her lip and moved inside the house, letting Ryan in and shutting it behind him, and headed toward the stairs. “Let's go to my room,” she said, trotting up the steps. “I thought we could pick out a movie and then put some popcorn on. Mom and 'Turo won't be home for hours, so we have the place all to ourselves.”

Popcorn and a movie. It just sounded so normal. Ryan hadn't done normal for so long that it felt strange, as if it shouldn't really be happening to him. He didn't know why Jake had let him go to Theresa's, but he bet normal wasn't on the agenda for him when he went back later.

Ryan followed Theresa slowly but stopped on the landing outside her door. She had put the scraggly flowers down on her bedside cabinet and was scanning her small collection of DVDs for something suitable. Her finger was hovering more over the action movies than the romantic comedies, so at least she wouldn't expect too much cuddling. And it wouldn't be giving her any ideas. Not that Ryan usually minded it, but sometimes Theresa was a lot of effort, and he didn't have the energy for it today, even if it was a small price to pay to get out of his own house.

“So do you want Die Hard 2 or Speed? Planes or buses, it's your choice.”

Ryan placed a bracing hand on the hallway wall, rubbing a thumb along the smooth wallpaper. “Actually, I, uh . . . is there any chance I could get a shower first? Jake keeps using all the hot water.” A small enough lie and one that was easy for Theresa to accept. The fact was that Ryan didn't want to tell her the truth – that he was too scared to leave his room for long enough to have a shower; that he didn't know what Jake would think up to do to him if he used all the water or took too long; or any number of other possible infractions that the task could cause.

Theresa went with it, though, with only a short, pitying look before she banished it in favour of a smile. “Ryan Atwood, I knew you only wanted me for my hot water.” She grabbed a DVD off the shelf and walked back towards him.

Ryan shook his head once, not in the mood for the banter any more. It had been a long day, a long week. “If it's not okay—”

“Of course it's okay, you idiot. And no, my mom won't mind, either. Do you want me to call her and get her permission?” Theresa was joking still, one thumb hooked into the pocket of her jeans as she leaned in the doorway, but there was an edge to her voice now that made Ryan uncomfortable. She got that way sometimes - frustrated because she knew there was more going on than Ryan was telling her, and upset because she knew he never would.

Ryan just choked down the lump in his throat and stared at the floor, a little cowed. Her anger shouldn't have gotten to him so much, especially since she wasn't really mad – but Ryan had taken just about as much tension and yelling as he could take, and Theresa was threatening to push him over the edge.

“Sorry,” she said, apparently sensing that she'd let it go a little too far, but Ryan could still hear the frustration there and he knew that she wasn't, really. That assessment was matched by her terse, “I'll get you towel,” before she pushed past him to the linen closet.

Ryan nodded and turned to the bathroom without looking at her. He needed a break. He needed just a little time alone in a room with a lock on the door, where he wasn't constantly worrying that someone was waiting outside, finding some other excuse to hit him. He needed some room to breathe.

Ryan turned the shower on, letting the water run hot as he peeled his shirt off slowly, wary of catching the cuts on his back. The bathroom was warm but Ryan was still shivering. He'd been shivering all day.

“Oh, my God, Ryan.”

Ryan spun, snapping back against the wall automatically, bumping his tailbone painfully against the basin as he manoeuvred. Theresa was standing in the doorway, a huge, fluffy blue bath towel in a crumpled heap on the floor.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, shocked by her undetected entrance. He tried to work out exactly what she could have seen, racking his brain for some way of mitigating the damage.

“I'm sorry. I thought you were . . .” she pointed at the shower, which was still running loudly, splashing hard against the plastic curtain. Her face hardened suddenly, intent with purpose now and she stepped forward. “What the hell  _was_ that, Ryan?”

“Nothing,” Ryan bit out, desperate denial his last resort. “It's nothing, okay? Now could you please get out?” He moved forward to grab his shirt from the floor but Theresa beat him to it, snatching it off the tile and retreating a couple of steps with it clutched tightly in her hand.

“What the hell was it, Ryan? Tell me.”

“Theresa give me back my shirt,” he demanded, raising his voice.

“Hell no. Not until you tell me what's going on. God, Ryan have you  _seen_ yourself?” she was practically screaming at him, waving his shirt at him as if it was evidence of something.

Ryan gritted his teeth hard. He knew what he looked like. He'd seen the bruises enough times – patches of daubed blue and purple covering his back and chest – that he couldn't look at himself any more. He'd seen it before too, plenty of times, long before his dad walked out of his life and another man walked into it. For him the shock had long since worn off, even if the anger and the disgust never really went away.

Ryan rubbed his face hard with one hand, wondering if he could get his shirt back from Theresa without tearing it. He didn't even want to think what Jake would say if he came back with ruined clothes. “Just leave it, Theresa,” he pleaded, casting wary glances at her.

Her eyes flashed. “How could you not tell me this? I thought he just hit you in the face, I thought that was it. You're covered in bruises Ryan – and those marks . . .” Theresa was practically hysterical now. She moved towards him and grabbed him lightly by the arm, trying to twist him so that she could see better.

Ryan shrugged her off, appalled and grabbed his shirt out of her hand. “Don't touch me,” he told her, shaking with anger and fear and humiliation as he shrugged the shirt back on. Too late he realised how that sounded. He ran a tongue across his dry lips. “Please,” he added, quietly.

Theresa caught his arm again, harder this time. “You can't just walk out. Those marks--”

“Stop it,” he hissed suddenly, swinging his head to glare at her. He couldn't deal with this now. It was enough that Jake was constantly pressuring him, that his mother was expecting him to pretend everything was okay and 'try to get along'. He couldn't take Theresa yelling at him for letting Jake do this to him. He felt as though he was being pulled in three different directions, stretched to the limit, about to explode.

Theresa let go and backed up out of shock, but when he stalked out of the bathroom she sprung after him. “Where the hell are you going?”

“Home,” Ryan answered, knowing that it wasn't the right word. 'Jake's house' might have been more appropriate, hell, even 'the place that I live' would at least have been truthful. Home had been lost in the ether an eternity ago: drunk and yelled and beaten away.

Theresa laughed incredulously. “You can't be serious. You're going back there when he does that to you?”

Ryan spun halfway down the stairs. “Stop it!” he yelled, finally losing his temper, because he didn't need her to say it to him, not with such contempt, as if he invited it, even though he knew she didn't think that.

Theresa didn't even blink at his raised voice, just kept coming down the stairs until she was right in front of him, towering over him. “How long have we been friends, Ryan?” she demanded. “Why didn't you tell me it was that bad?”

“Because it's fucking embarrassing!” he shot back.

“So instead you just let that bastard use you as a whipping boy? That's great, Ryan.”

Ryan winced at her words, but Theresa's ire was up now and he knew she wasn't going to let this go. She couldn't, just like he couldn't let it go whenever his mom's current dubious choice turned on her. It hurt too much to let it go.

“You didn't even have to tell me. But you could have told someone – a teacher, my mom, or your brother, Ryan. God!” Theresa flapped an arm towards his house, palm up, rigid with desperation. “You had Social Services in your house not even a week ago and you didn't say  _anything?_ ”

“What was I supposed to say, Theresa?” Ryan spat, staring up the steps at her, “Huh? With  _him_  sitting right there, what the  _hell_  was I supposed to say?”

“I could take you to the police station right now.”

“And do what?” he retorted. She made it sound so easy, as if all you had to do was tell and everything just got fixed. But Theresa had lost the fire in her eyes now, because she knew better. This stuff happened too often in Chino, and everybody knew that the police never solved anything. He was trapped, helpless in this situation, angrier now because she had found it out, and the weakness was burning him along with Theresa's accusing pity. “You want me to go into the system? Because you'll never see me again if that happens. You want me to get shipped around from home to home with all the other kids that nobody fucking wants?” He stopped there, biting his lip to stop anything else from coming out.

“What d'you want me to do, Ryan?” Theresa asked, quieter now, her voice thick with unshed tears.

He closed his eyes, resisting the impulse to reach out to her, comfort her. He didn't have enough in him right now to do that, and she probably didn't want it anyway.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked again. “Just let you go back there so he can do it again? You want me to just pretend I don't know how bad he hurts you?”

Ryan's head snapped up and he met her eyes again. “Yes. That's exactly what I want.”

She shrugged – a tiny, helpless movement. “Well, I can't do that.”

He kept her gaze for a few more seconds and then he nodded to himself and turned away, jogging down the last few steps. He didn't hear her move as he passed into the hallway and out of the door, shutting it softly behind him. Then he heard her crying and his last tenuous hold snapped with it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Newport,**  
 **Fall 2003**  
  
  
Luckily no one was around when Ryan came back from Marissa’s. He went around the back way in any case but though the lights were on in the main house, he didn’t see anyone as he walked past the kitchen towards the pool house.  
  
He shut the door after him and stood there for a moment, eyes closed, trying to reign in his temper and that feeling of total and utter humiliation that only increased every time he thought of what had just happened. Why couldn’t Marissa just leave it alone? Why did she have to know everything? As if living through it wasn’t bad enough she had to constantly pressure him to tell all. Even then, most days she would have enough sense to leave it alone when Ryan evaded the question but tonight, tonight she had just kept pushing.  
  
Ryan clenched his fists, squeezed his eyes tighter shut. He didn’t want to talk about it. More than that, he didn’t want to think about it ever again. Ryan opened his eyes, heaving deep, angry breaths. He kicked out at the foot of the bed, feeling the shock of impact travel through the steel toecap of his boot. He wasn’t even angry at her, Ryan realised, kicking at the bed again out of pure frustration. He was just angry: at himself for not being able to talk about Chino; at life for ever being something that he couldn’t talk about. It was embarrassing having a past like his looming over his shoulder all the time, not letting him forget that there were times that he was nothing but a pathetic victim. He knew that Marissa’s main attraction to him was the fact that he could always be relied upon to be strong for her. He didn’t think he could take the disappointed, pitying look he knew she would cast him if he told her about his worst moments, or hell, even his mildly bad ones. Ryan kicked the bed a final time, catching the edge of the mattress, which flipped up a little before dropping back down again onto the base.  
  
“Whoa, buddy, what’s going on?”  
  
Ryan dropped his head and rested his hands on his hips. There was a slight scuff mark on the wooden base of the bed, he noticed. Great, now because he couldn’t control himself he’d damaged the Cohens’ things.  
  
“You ever heard of knocking, Seth?” he ground out. He heard Seth shut the pool house door and walk further into the room.  
  
“Sure I have, I just choose not to be limited by the standards of the masses,” Seth explained, sounding inconceivably bright as usual. Ryan didn’t know where he found the energy for it. “I feel that I announce my presence in more innovative ways that are expressive of my individual character.”  
  
“Like walking in unannounced and making really unhelpful comments?” Ryan said, swivelling his head sideways to glare at Seth.  
  
Seth ignored him and took a seat on one of the wicker chairs. Ryan sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing him.  
  
“So, let’s take this opportunity to share, shall we? I take it that your visit with Marissa didn’t go quite as planned.”  
  
“Not exactly, no.”  
  
Seth sucked in his lip and opened his eyes wide, bobbing his head in encouragement, waiting for more words. Ryan wasn't sure he had any in him.  
  
“It's just--” Ryan started, frowning as he fumbled for words, “You know . . .” He took a frustrated breath and looked down. Event thinking about it made him feel angrier, more embarrassed and stupider for getting into it with Marissa in the first place. But it had just been too much, that last thing that he wasn't in the mood to take after the horrible few weeks he'd just endured, and because of it Ryan knew he was going to be on fallout limitation for a long time. Which was yet another hassle on his already full plate. “You know . . . things before . . . with my mom, they weren't exactly great . . .” Ryan attempted, stumbling over the words and the awkward, heaving pauses.  
  
“Yeah, I got it, buddy,” Seth interrupted, saving Ryan from himself. “'Nough said.”  
  
“See that's the problem,” Ryan said, flapping a hand in frustration. “With Marissa, it's never ''nough said'.”  
  
“Ah, not so talented with interpreting the Atwood silences our Marissa,” Seth stated sagely, nodding his head.  
  
“Now she wants to know all this stuff and I don't know what to say to her. Or how to not say it without upsetting her.” Ryan let out a puff of air and flopped backwards onto the bed, feet still resting on the floor at the foot of it.  
  
Seth made some exaggerated thinking noises and Ryan lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looking down the bed to Seth. He was holding his chin in his hand.  
  
“Okay, I think I've got most of the basic points here, Ryan: Marissa wanted to open up the relationship with communication, the telling of secrets and intimate things, and you responded negatively. What I now need to know is how she took it?”  
  
“I . . . I don't know. I kinda just walked out before I punched something.”  
  
Seth whistled and Ryan closed his eyes.  
  
“Dude,” Seth said with an embarrassed chuckle. “So basically you completely freaked her out and then left? Yeah the only advice I can give you is to hide until you can come up with a really grand gesture.”  
  
“I know,” Ryan moaned, throwing his arm over his head. And he would have to apologise, and an apology would lead to Marissa thinking he was sorry for not talking about it all, which would mean she would press him for it again. “Do you think there's any way of making it up to her without giving her the impression that I'll talk about it? Because I'm so not talking about it.” And damn he was desperate asking Seth for relationship advice when his friend's entire experience consisted of a very brief make-out session.  
  
“I'm guessing that you tried to explain already why you didn't want to talk about it?”  
  
Ryan nodded from underneath his arm. His explanation had been somewhat lacking in most of the necessary adjectives though and it had been met with the typical Marissa tactic – guilt.  
  
_'Don't you trust me? I've told you everything about me.'_  
  
Marissa thought she knew about life, but she was clueless. Sure her mother could be very overbearing but even Ryan could see that underneath a lot of her actions there was just a concerned mom. Sure, Julie made mistakes and acted selfishly, but Ryan couldn't ever see Julie standing by while some man she barely knew broke her child's arm; he couldn't see Julie getting wasted for weeks on end and then spending all the rent money on more cheap vodka when she ran out. Marissa thought her life was a wreck but her parents still loved her, they still tried to protect her, even from herself. Her life was on an entirely different level to Ryan's life in Chino, and even if he wanted to, he didn't think he could find the language to explain it in a way Marissa could understand.  
  
And she didn't really want to know, Ryan could see it in her eyes. She wanted his secrets because they were secrets, because the mystery was intriguing. If he ever told her, he was sure she'd change her mind – about wanting to know, about him, about their entire relationship. Ryan wasn't ready to take a risk like that yet, if he ever would be.  
  
He was startled by the phone ringing. Wearily he pulled his arm off his face and rolled over on the bed, reaching over to the phone on the bedside cabinet and pulling it off of the base. A glance at the screen revealed no surprises. Ryan twisted round onto his back again and put his thumb on the answer button. He rested it there for a moment, biting his lip as he tried to make the decision. Then he moved his thumb and pressed the reject call button and the phone hung up with a soft beep.  
  
“She's gonna kick your ass at school tomorrow.”  
  
“Or Summer will kick my ass for her.”  
  
“Yeah, that Summer, she has a kick like a mule.”  
  
Ryan didn't have the energy to give Seth the look he deserved for that comment.  
  
“Uh-oh, speak of the devil.”  
  
The pool house door banged open. “What is your problem, Atwood?”  
  
Ryan wondered what the chances were of her disappearing if he didn't open his eyes. A slap to the side of the head answered that question for him, so he opened them and sat up, defiantly refraining from rubbing at his head where Summer had hit him. She stood in front of him, hand on hip, weight planted firmly on her right foot.  
  
“Normally I wouldn't interfere,” she explained, managing to look a little less warlike, “I mean Marissa's relationships are  _always_  complicated, but this time I'm not staying out of it. I just had her on the phone in t _ears_ , Atwood. So seriously, whatever the heck it is that happened you have to sort it out.” Speech over, Summer shifted a little uncomfortably. “I mean it,” she added curtly, raising her eyebrows. “That's . . . really all I came here to say,” she announced, looking acutely uncomfortable now. With one last meaningful shake of her head, Summer spun and walked back to the door.  
  
Ryan shot a look at Seth who pointed at Summer's back and mouthed theatrically: 'Like a mule.'  
  
“Oh,” Summer exclaimed, turning back, “before I forget - Cohen, I need to talk to you outside.”  
  
Seth grinned at Ryan and followed her out, shutting the door behind him. He had just let go of the handle when Summer smacked him around the head with her purse. Seth yelled in shock and raised his arms to block further attack.  
  
“What the hell was that for?”  
  
“Here's some simple math for you Cohen: glass plus lights equals reflection. And what was it that you said? That I'm like a yule or something, what does that even mean?”  
  
Seth laughed that fake laugh that always came out when he was about to lie to get out of trouble. “No, I said it's like a duel, what you did in there, with the hitting and the telling off. And by the way, have you heard of a little invention called the phone? I hear it's really come a long way.”  
  
Summer made a face. “Oh ha ha. I thought that he'd probably just hang up on me.” There was an awkward pause. “So, uh, maybe you should walk me back to my car,” Summer suggested, putting weight on the words to show that it wasn't a suggestion at all.  
  
Ryan was pretty grateful when Seth took the hint and they wandered off around the pool towards the driveway, bickering away. He needed quiet to think . . . and brood.  
  
“I cannot  _believe_  that you're bringing this up now!” Sandy's angry voice filtered in and Ryan looked out of the glass doors to the kitchen in the main house that had been empty moments ago. He heaved a heavy breath, chest tightening at Sandy's irate tone. He'd never heard his guardian that mad before.  
  
In the kitchen Kirsten had followed Sandy in and was grabbing a bottle of wine off of the wine rack.  
  
Yelling and drinking, wasn't that a nice piece of home, Ryan thought bitterly.  
  
“ _I'm_  bringing it up? Who is it that's been spending all their free time with some girl who looks like she should be dating one of our kids?” Kirsten's face was twisted with fury. She uncorked the bottle violently and filled a glass almost to the brim.   
  
Ryan drew another deep breath, catching his own eyes in the reflection on the glass. He remembered he was standing there in full view and moved over to the light switch and flicked it off. The room plunged into darkness.  
  
“Rachel and I are colleagues,” Sandy retorted, “I thought we had settled this.”  
  
“So did I,” Kirsten replied with rancour. She gulped down half the glass of wine in one go and topped it up. “One thing, Sandy,” she exclaimed, picking up the glass and gesticulating with it. There was a lot of Dawn in that gesture, and it made Ryan's blood run cold. “I ask one thing of you, and that's to keep this weekend clear so we can spend some time together. This was important to me.”  
  
Ryan moved forward, bracing one hand against the frame of the door, indecisive. He didn't know if he would make things better or worse if he went in there. Or if, in fact, his presence wouldn't change anything.  And maybe that was the most frightening possibility.  
  
“Well maybe if you weren't in bed with your father on this Balboa Heights thing then I wouldn't have to break my dates with you. He's the one that's pushing this.”  
  
Kirsten pointed a finger at Sandy. “Don't you bring him into this--”  
  
“You brought Rachel into this!”  
  
“And now you're defending her?” Kirsten yelled.  
  
“I shouldn't need to defend her,” Sandy yelled back, leaning on the counter in front of him, putting all his weight on it, as if it was a physical barrier that was stopping him from losing his temper completely.  
  
“She hasn't done anything.  _I_ haven't done anything.”  
  
Ryan swallowed, closed his eyes and tried to block out the screaming.  
  



	18. Chapter 18

**Chino,**   
**Spring 2002**

 

  
Ryan stood in the darkness of his room, eyes closed, desperately wishing that he could ignore the screaming coming from the other room.  He laid his head back against the door, a hand on the doorknob, tensing reflexively at every shout, every sudden movement marked by the thumping of footsteps, every hollow thud of empty bottles slammed back on countertops.  
  
“You think I don't know what you're doing with her, you cheating asshole?” Dawn screamed, causing Ryan to flinch and open his eyes again, staring blindly in the dark.    
  
He was sick and tired, weary, of this scene that played out over and over and over again.  He felt like Sisyphus; doomed to fight against the same burden for eternity, with no way of escaping it or breaking the cycle.  And what made him sickest was that he had known, when he'd heard his mother's first sniping comment, that it would end up like just like it always did; with a slap in the face or a punch and her crying for her youngest to help her.  And he was scared, terrified, of what Jake was going to do to him when he had to go out there.  
  
“What, you not even gonna answer me, you coward?” she yelled again.  
  
“Shut up, bitch,” Jake snapped back, and Ryan flinched again, jerking back hard against the door, heart pounding.  “I've taken about all I'm gonna take from you.”  
  
Ryan tightened his jaw and screamed in his head for her to just shut up.  To just this once take the wounded pride and leave the argument alone.  Just this once, if only for herself.  
  
“Don't you tell me what to do!  You ain't got no right to tell me what to do in my own house.  Just get out.  Get out.  Go stay with that bitch, coz I won't have you.”  
  
“This is last time I'm telling you, Dawnie,” Jake warned, his voice turning low and sing-song the way it always did when he was about to blow.  “You shut it, or regret it.  Your choice.”  
  
There was a moment of deep silence.  All Ryan could hear was his own heavy, panicked breathing, the darkness crushing his chest.  
  
“Fuck you, you can't treat me like this.”  
  
The slap seemed to echo through the house, followed by a second and a third before Ryan could get his frozen limbs to move, twisting his hand around the doorknob to pull it open.  He was shaking so badly that it took him two tries to get it and then he was out and in the hallway, and every step closer to the living room made his legs tremble worse, threatening to collapse underneath his weight.  He stopped in the doorway and put a hand on the wall for support.  
  
His mother was leaning against the refrigerator, a hand against her reddened cheek.  Jake snatched the bottle of beer she was holding and swigged it down.  
  
“I told you to get out,” Dawn yelled at him, making no attempt to take the bottle back.  “I don't want you in my house.”  
  
Jake raised a hand to her and she flinched, but didn't stop glaring.  
  
“Leave her alone,” Ryan protested quietly, leaning harder against the wall.  They both ignored him, too consumed by their anger to realise he was there.  
  
“How many times have you fucked that bitch?” his mother demanded.  Then she sneered. “That why you can never get it up for me?”  
  
Jake set the empty bottle on the counter and backhanded her into the refrigerator.  Dawn put up an arm to guard herself as he delivered blow after blow.  
  
“First off," Jake panted in between punches, "I ain't going anywhere, you fucking bitch.”  
  
“Stop it,” Ryan said weakly, voice trembling.  
  
“You want to accuse me of shit?” Jake continued, oblivious.  “You're the one who can't keep a job for a month straight.  Who is it that's been paying all the bills for this place, huh?”  
  
He kept hitting her, his palm smacking into her arm or her shoulder or the back of her head.  Dawn's nose was bleeding now, a thin trickle down to her lip, and she was crying – tears glossing over her swollen cheeks.  
  
Ryan wanted to cry with her.  He should have been on top of Jake, pulling him off, hitting him, anything, but fear prevented him from moving past the doorway, and he didn't think he could ever forgive himself for being this pathetic, for standing here and watching it happen.  Is this what his mother felt like?  Helpless and guilty and full of self-loathing.  
  
“You know what,” Jake taunted, hitting her again, “I should leave, I should pack up right now.  You and your bastard kid will be homeless in a week, how would you like that?”  
  
“Stop it,” Ryan repeated, stronger, despite the sickness in his stomach and his inability to breathe.  
  
Jake paused long enough to turn and jab a finger at him. “You'd better get back in your room, boy.”  
  
Ryan shook his head, scared silent but refusing to retreat.  He was in this now, and even if he couldn't go further, he wouldn't go back.  He took another breath as Jake stared him down, and fought for words.  “Just stop it,” he said, delving for anger somewhere inside himself, searching for a trigger to get Jake's attention from his mother.  “Get off her, you asshole,” he said, with as much venom as he could force past the shaking.  
  
Jake spun and marched up to him, grabbing a handful of his hair even as Ryan attempted a desperate retreat.  Jake yanked up him straight and started dragging him back to his bedroom.  Ryan winced at the tight grip and stumbled after him.  He tried to control his breathing, but he could feel the panic ripping his air away.  Jake kicked the door shut after them and slammed him up against the wall.  
  
It was an all too familiar position, pushed up against the pale green wall with Jake pressed so close to him that he could feel the man's juddering heartbeat.  Adrenaline.  The thrill of the hunt.  
  
“This is it, you little bastard,” Jake said, shaking his head.  “I told you not to disrespect me; I told you not to answer me back; I told you that if you pissed me off again I would kill you.  Well you just managed all three.”  
  
Ryan could feel the tears in his eyes.  His hands were pressed against the wall behind him, shaking so badly that he could feel the vibration of them tapping it.  
  
He'd never seen Jake this angry.  Not just angry, but furious - killing mad.  
  
And he'd never been this scared.  Ever.  Not when he was five and his father had gone after him with a bat in one of his drunken rages; not when he was ten and Trey had disappeared for three weeks without contact; not last year when a loan shark's hired help had appeared on the doorstep looking for kneecaps to bust.  
  
His mother was still crying in the other room.  He could feel her movement on the other side of the wall.  
  
Jake tightened his hold in Ryan's hair, pulling his arm down and pushing the heel of his hand up into Ryan's neck, forcing his head up, putting his throat on display.  
  
He hadn't seen Jake grab a knife from the kitchen.  But that didn't mean he didn't have one on him.  Ryan wondered what it was like to have your throat slit.  Did you feel the tendons snap?  Did you feel the cold seeping up through your limbs as your life blood emptied out on the floor?  
  
“Please, don't, I'm sorry,” Ryan whispered, hating himself more with every word that came out of his mouth.  
  
“I told you once, it's too fucking late for sorry.”  
  
There was a loud crash from outside – the sound of glass shattering, and his mother's screaming, rendered wordless by the walls between.  
  
“You come out there again I'm gonna kill her too, you understand?  This is all on you,” he hissed.  “You remember that.  This is all on you.”  Jake let go, snapping Ryan's head so hard against the wall that it made him dizzy, and he sagged a little, trying to catch his balance.  He failed and fell anyway, dropping to the floor with a thump.  
  
There was more screaming from outside, joined by Jake's shouting.  It amplified momentarily as the front door opened again.  His mother must have gone after Jake's car, Ryan reasoned, as the argument continued inside.  They were both yelling at the same time now, neither one really distinguishable above the other.  Insults and threats and rage all melding into each other.  That sound was so familiar that sometimes Ryan didn't know what to do with the silences.  
  
Ryan just curled up, knees drawn to his chest, head buried in them, and waited for Jake to hit her again.  And he did.  And soon there wasn't any shouting any more, just the sound of fists on flesh and his mother calling for him.  
  
“Ryan.  Ryan, baby, please.”  
  
And Ryan cried - the first real tears since his father had left almost a decade ago - because he couldn't help her, and because she wouldn't help him, and she wouldn't help herself.  
  
“Ryan, please,” Dawn moaned again, the noise dampened by the living room carpet where she was lying now.  
  
“Keep calling, bitch, he ain't coming.”  
  
“Ryan.”  
  
“Good dog.  Now how about you sit up and beg.”  
  
Ryan's stomach churned. He scrubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, tried to clear his thoughts as he sniffed back the rest of the tears.  
  
“You know nobody looks after you like I do, Dawnie,” Jake was saying.  He was calm again, in control.  Jake was always in control.  “So sit up and beg me to stay before I walk out of here like I should.”  
  
Ryan wiped at the tears again, sweeping his head to the side, as if he could see through the wall and watch his mother's total subjugation.  As if seeing it wouldn't make it worse.  
  
But there was something on the floor, something that shouldn't have been there.  Ryan reached over and picked it up, gingerly flipping it open so that he could see the screen.  
  
Jake's cellphone.  He may have been scrounging somewhere to live, but the man was a drug dealer, and no drug dealer could be without means of communication.  
  
Dawn was sobbing, louder now, clearer, probably up on her knees.  
  
“Come on, Dawnie, I know you want me to stay, I just need to hear you say it.”  
  
Ryan looked back at the screen – glowing blue in the darkness – and ran his thumb across the buttons.  Up, across, then back down.  His hands were sticky with sweat against the sleek metal.  He pressed his thumb down once, slid it across the number pad and pressed again, twice, then stopped.  
  
Everyone in Chino knew that cops never fixed things.  It only ever made things worse.  Jake would be mad at him, madder even than he was.  Dawn would probably be mad, too.  
  
If he didn't, Jake was going to walk right in here and kill him.  After he'd finished humiliating Ryan's mother.  He didn't know if he could live with that anyway.  
  
“Say it Dawnie,” Jake cajoled.  He wasn't losing patience.  This was a game to him, a source of fun.  
  
“Please--”  
  
Ryan closed his eyes and pressed the call button.  
  
“911.  What's your emergency?”


	19. Chapter 19

**Newport,  
** **Fall 2003**  
  
  
"Who are you calling?"  
  
Seth's voice startled Ryan out of his daze and he looked up, blinking, to find his friend standing in the pool house doorway, one foot on the sill and his gangly fingers wrapped around the door frame. Ryan looked back down at the phone in his hand, the numbers a stark black against the green glow of the screen. He stared at the three digits, his thumb hovering over the call button, while his heartbeat kept thumping rapidly.  
  
Seth finally stepped through the door and approached him, suspicion aroused by Ryan's strange demeanour. He flicked on the lights as he came in, and Ryan had to squint to block out the glare. “Who are you calling?” Seth asked again. “And why are you standing here in the dark?”  
  
Ryan just swallowed and kept staring at the screen. In the main house, Kirsten and Sandy were still arguing, but their voices were lower now, the immediate threat of violence gradually ebbing. Ryan wasn't sure what to do. He really didn't know why he'd picked up the phone and dialed. It certainly wasn't an instinctual thing – nobody called the cops in Chino. And yet . . . he felt frozen, unable to put the handset down.  
  
"Ryan?” Seth came a few paces closer, a hand edging out towards him.  
  
He opened his mouth to frame an answer of some sort, although the words had yet to come to him, but Seth was quicker, grabbing his wrist and twisting it so that he could see the numbers that Ryan had punched in. Seth did a quick double take, eyebrows shooting downwards into a worried frown.  
  
“Uh, Ryan?” Seth voice wobbled with concern. “You have an accident or something? What's wrong?” Chestnut eyes ran frantically over Ryan's body, searching out any cause for alarm. 

Ryan licked his lips and shook himself partially out of his stupor. It wasn't like he could call the cops on Seth's parents with his friend standing right there, and the sounds of argument had completely died out now.  
  
It was just an argument, he told himself. That was all. He was over-reacting.  
  
With a deft movement, Ryan cancelled the call, hefting the small weight of the phone in his hand.  
  
“Nothing,” he said, concentrating really hard on convincing himself of that. “It doesn't matter.” He managed to flash Seth a quick smile and turned to put the phone back on its base by the side of the bed. He drew a breath and tried to force some nonchalance into his voice. “What's up?”  
  
Seth pursed his lips and stared at him. “Okay,” he drawled, “I don't wanna know what happened just there, do I?”  
  
“What d'you mean?” Ryan bluffed, occupying himself with fluffing the pillows and straightening the covers on his bed.  
  
“That's what I thought,” Seth replied, wringing his hands together. “So . . . I managed to get rid of Summer for you, by the way. Although, you know, I don't think she really wanted to leave me. Poor girl, she's getting clingy. But don't worry, buddy, because I took care of it in the end. You can sleep safe in the knowledge that she won't be coming after you again. Well, not tonight anyway.”  
  
“Thanks, man.” Ryan spared Seth a short nod - ignoring the poor attempt to inject some humour into the situation - even as his eyes drifted back to the kitchen. Sandy was busy setting the table while Kirsten emptied out foil packages into serving dishes. Their movements were harsh and jolting, revealing the anger which still lay beneath the surface. Ryan found his gaze shifting back the phone. It was okay, he repeated to himself, they both seemed calmer now, despite the residual anger.  
  
But the argument had made him nervous – there was the telltale sickness swirling in the pit of his stomach again that had accompanied him pretty permanently through life in Chino; the result of the constant nervous tension which had soaked into the very walls, an expectation that at any moment for any reason, someone could lose their temper and lash out. Ryan hadn't really noticed it much until he'd come to Newport where it had gradually just vanished, until one day he'd woken up and recognised its absence.  
  
“Anyway, my parents sent me in to get you for dinner, so . . .” Seth hooked a thumb at the door.  
  
Ryan stayed static for a moment, trying to still the nervous fluttering in his gut. It had to be okay. If after all the stuff he'd pulled over the last week, and that screaming match in the kitchen – if after all that Sandy hadn't hit anyone yet, he probably wasn't going to.  
  
Kirsten wasn't hurt. Nothing was going to happen, which meant that there would be nothing to put himself in the middle of.  
  
His moment of hesitation had stretched to a minute, and was already drawing a deeply troubled look from Seth. That was the problem with survival instincts; sometimes they kicked in at the most inopportune moments.  
  
“You okay, man? Like really?” Seth ventured, frowning at him.  
  
Ryan wanted badly to claim sickness and retreat into bed. It wasn't like he could be hungry anyway now, and the pounding headache was shocking his nerves, sending bolts of pain down his neck. But he'd already brought way too much attention to himself. So instead he set his jaw and nodded jerkily. “Sure, I'm fine. Just tired.” He nodded at the open doors, light from the pool house bouncing off them onto the patio. “Let's go.”If this had been Chino that alone would be a sure omen of the inevitable resumption of an argument. Ryan hoped it didn't mean the same thing here. They'd had tense meals before and no one had ended up getting hit. But this was worse than Ryan had ever seen it.

Seth studied him for a few more seconds before he turned and walked out, casting occasional glances over his shoulder. Ryan released a breath, relieved of the steady scrutiny, and followed his friend.  
  
He felt himself drawing tense as they approached the main house doors and consciously fought to relax his shoulders, to stop from curling in on himself. Back in Chino something like that might have brought ridicule, or revealed a dangerous weakness and fear. Here it always seemed to lead to questions. He didn't want questions. He just wanted to get through this dinner and retreat back to the pool house without further confrontation.  
  
Sandy looked up from setting the table as they entered and fixed them both with a stiff smile. Kirsten didn't even manage that, slamming another full wine glass down in front of her place as she took her seat.  
  
Ryan kept his head down as they ate and stayed quiet, slowly stirring the food around his plate with his fork. He took a small mouthful here and there, whenever he felt eyes pass in his direction, but even that small amount of food settled heavily in his stomach, only serving to make him feel sicker. Cohen family dinners weren't supposed to be like this: not the forced, seething mealtimes of the Atwood family. Kirsten wasn't supposed to be gulping down wine like his mother used to down vodka.  
  
He sighed softly and let his eyes drift shut for a second.  
  
“So how was school today, guys?” Sandy's voice came obscenely loud in the silence, as ineffective an attempt at nonchalance as Ryan's not a few minutes before.  
  
Ryan looked up from his plate where his fork was currently agitating a mound of rice. Sandy was chewing on a mouthful, flicking his gaze between Seth and Ryan, waiting for an answer. He looked relaxed but Ryan could sense the underlying tension in the way that his shoulders were just a little too tight, his jaw moving just a little too hard as he ate.  
  
He was still angry.  
  
Seth shot Ryan a covert look, brown eyes darkened in concentration, as if to confirm Ryan's disinclination to answer. A second later he was off on some tirade about his English Literature teacher, drawing attention away from Ryan again, who went back to flicking the grains of rice around his plate.  
  
He managed another couple of green beans and a hunk of chicken before Seth finished his story with an exaggerated shake of his head, waving cutlery about in his ardour.  
  
Ryan slipped his gaze down the table and found Sandy's reflection in the side of the glass serving dish. His tepid smile was morphed by the curve of the dish and the opaque tracks of watermarks.  
  
“By the way, Dad, could you tell me what the heck you guys were arguing about earlier?” Seth demanded suddenly, dispelling the fragile air normalcy with that one careless choice of words.  
  
Ryan's head swept up in shock. Calling attention to an argument would have been suicide in Chino, and from the glares that both adults were now directing at Seth it seemed that it wasn't a smart thing to do in Newport either.  
  
“Don't talk with your mouth full,” was Kirsten's only admonishment. Her glare slid to Sandy and then to her wine glass as she gulped the contents down.  
  
Sandy hesitated, seeming to hover between telling Seth off and telling the truth. “We were discussing some work issues,” he replied finally, exchanging another sharp look with Kirsten that carried a wealth of simmering hurt beneath it.  
  
“'Discussing, huh?” Seth repeated. “I dunno, Dad, but if you’re going to lie about it could you at least make it a good one? Like alien monkeys have taken over the planet and Mom is their leader. Or that it wasn’t your yelling that I could hear all the way out on the kerb it was actually the Earth changing orbit. I mean, geez, I’m the last one to be a critic . . . well okay, that’s not strictly true, but the point is that maybe next time you guys have a ‘discussion’ you don't want to do it quite so loud. I'm surprised Julie Cooper didn't call the cops on you for noise pollution.” Seth ground to a sudden halt, frowning, and dropped his fork to his plate. The metal tinged loudly as it hit the ceramic, drawing Kirsten's head up again as he fixed Ryan with a searching stare.  
  
“Seth,” Ryan hissed warning, shaking his head fractionally.  
  
“Seth, just eat your dinner,” Kirsten commanded, apparently not registering the quiet exchange.  
  
Sandy nodded. “Listen to your mother. Whatever this is, I can promise you, it's nothing serious.”  
  
“Oh it's not?” Kirsten demanded, pursing her lips.  
  
Sandy sighed and Ryan dropped his head again, laying his fork down quietly on the edge of his plate.  
  
“Would you care to explain how this is 'not serious', Sandy? Or maybe Rachel should come over and explain for you.”  
  
This is ridiculous,” Sandy muttered, shaking his head as he reached for his glass.  
  
Ryan tightened his jaw, slid his chair back a fraction of an inch and braced his hands on the sides of the seat, ready for the blowout. He scanned the darkening faces of his guardians and turned to Seth, whose eyes were still on Ryan, and lit now with sudden revelation.  
  
“You were calling the cops, weren't you?” Seth blurted out. 


	20. Chapter 20

**Chino,  
** **Spring 2002**  
  
  
Ryan slumped low in his chair, wishing he could disappear behind the stained and pitted laminate of the dining table.  
  
“Is that true, Ry?” his mother asked, the anger in her voice cutting across the room. “You call the cops?”  
  
He shrugged, studiously avoiding eye contact, although he could sense his mom's confused stare even with his head down, eyes focused on the old beer stain on the carpet. So much for the call being anonymous. The idiots had to – for once – work it out and blab it right in front of his mother.  
  
“Don't ignore me, Ryan.”  
  
“What else was I supposed to do, Mom?” He looked across at her and this time she was the one to turn away, still daubing at a bloody nose with a wad of tissue. Her face was swelling up something fierce, rapidly turning a sickly shade of blue. He stared at her a moment longer, battling emotions. “Can I get her some ice yet?” he demanded, fixing his glare at the carpet, but flicking his eyes to the cop in front of him for just a second.  
  
“We've got a few more questions to ask,” the officer told him.  
  
A few more questions. It felt like he'd been under inspection for hours, and the knowledge that Jake was still just in the other room – spouting who knew what kind of shit to get himself out of this – was only serving to make him angrier. He wanted the asshole out of the house, away from his mom, caged in a cell where he belonged.  
  
“Can she at least get herself some ice?”  
  
“I'm fine, baby. It's not so bad--”  
  
“Not so bad?” Ryan yelled, finally losing the grip on his temper. He hated that placating tone she was using, the way she only did when things went wrong and she needed to butter him up. He waved a hand at her face. “Have you seen yourself?”  
  
His mom jumped at his raised voice and Ryan dropped his head into his hands, clenching his fingers tight in his hair. Shit. He closed his eyes and dug his palms into the sockets, hard. He wasn't about to cry in front of the cops – it was bad enough that he'd lost it in his room earlier, that he'd known it was still obvious when they'd arrived, cuffing Jake from the get-go and hauling him off into the bedroom until they got everything sorted out.  
  
He remembered now why he never called the cops. To have a couple of strangers pawing through the most intimate details of your life when you were at your lowest point – it never failed to leave him feeling violated and uncomfortable in his own skin. Like mere words and glances could make you dirty inside.  
  
And this particular cop - with his emotionless, counterfeit sympathy - was really starting to piss Ryan off.  
  
“We're almost finished here, son, there's just some details we need to clear up.”  
  
_Son?_  It was considerably better than  _boy_ , but it still left a bad taste in his mouth.  
  
“I told you everything already,” Ryan said, making an effort to lower his voice, even if he didn't bother disguising his anger. “The asshole was hitting her, and he's done it before.”  
  
“Has he ever hit you?”  
  
“No, it's fashionable to look like a Picasso these days,” Ryan snapped, transferring his glare from the carpet to the uniform.  
  
The cop sighed and shifted tense shoulders. Muscles rippled under the short shirt sleeves. “There's no need for the attitude, kid.”  
  
Ryan ducked his head and muttered a half-hearted apology. Maybe it wasn't so wise to be annoying this guy.  
  
“Mrs Atwood, your boyfriend is claiming that the bruises were caused when he tried to restrain you after you started smashing up his car. Is that true?”  
  
“It's not even his car,” Ryan interrupted before his mom could even gather wit enough to understand the question. “He defaulted on the payments months ago, he just never bothered passing on his new address, and the jackass doesn't work, so they couldn't track him down to reclaim it.”  
  
The cop raised an eyebrow at him., making it clear that he hadn't asked Ryan and didn't want his opinion.  
  
“All she did was smash the window,” he continued, before the guy could give him a verbal order to keep quiet which he wouldn't be able to disobey. “The rest of it is damage from an accident he had a couple of weeks ago. Drink driving.” Ryan was tempted to add a cocaine high to that list, but didn't want to risk them searching the house and hauling his mother in for it too.  
  
Ryan had actually been amazed that Jake had somehow managed to drive all the way home and park up that night, considering the state the guy had been when he'd stumbled into the house. And he had to admit to a certain amount of satisfaction the next afternoon when he'd found Jake lamenting his killer hangover and the damage to his precious car.  
  
He sat back in his seat, hoping that his memory was right, that it had been the car window his mother had smashed while Jake was in his room. He couldn't remember much except Jake's words, which were horrific neon lights in his mind, but he was pretty sure he remembered glass breaking. “Look, are you gonna arrest him or what?” he asked, deliberately redirecting the focus of the conversation.  
  
“Yeah, we'll take him in,” the officer noted casually, “but we can't hold him unless your mother is willing to press charges.”  
  
Despair bubbled up inside.  
  
His mother was currently staring dully at the far wall, at the spot where the paint had chipped off, revealing the layer of flowery sixties wallpaper underneath. “I . . . I don't know . . .”  
  
Ryan shook his head. “Mom--”  
  
“Charges?” she said, swinging her head to look at him. “No, I don't think so. I'm not doing that.”  
  
“Mom!” He was about ready to burst at the seams. He wanted to grab her and shake her and scream until she got it. Jake was going to kill him. Literally kill him. “You have to. You have to press charges, Ma. Please!” The final word stuttered out off-balance, rarely used, a sign of total desperation. Having to say it in front of the cop, busy taking notes, filing it all away, stripped away the last of the dignity Ryan had barely managed to hold onto.  
  
“I can't do that, baby,” his mom said, tears rolling over her inflamed face, mixing with the clotting brown blood from her nose. “Jake, he's done a lot for us – I have to do right by him.”  
  
“By  _him_?” Ryan repeated, laughing at the absurdity. His breathing was coming faster, on the verge of hyperventilating. And wouldn't that just be great, having a panic attack right now with the cop standing by. “By him. What about  _us_ , Mom, huh?”  
  
“I'm sorry, Ry--”  
  
“Don't,” he cut her off roughly.  
  
She was always sorry: sorry that the water got shut off; sorry that she drank; sorry that she couldn't take care of him; sorry for her boyfriends hitting him, always; but never sorry enough, apparently, that she could just stop it.  
  
And every time she said that word he felt something die inside of him.  
  
“You're gonna let that fucker stay in this house?”  
  
“I never said that.”  
  
Ryan laughed again. “Yeah.” He can count the number of times she's actually thrown a guy out on one hand. It's always them getting bored of her or getting arrested. Hell, she'd put up with his dad for ten years, and only divorced him finally because he was likely to be in jail for at least another ten. And she'd wanted to move on.  
  
Look how well that had turned out.  
  
“I'm not pressing charges.”  
  
Ryan clenched his jaw hard, pushing down the rising nausea. He was dead. He was so fucking dead. What the hell was he supposed to do?  
  
“All right,” the cop said with a terse sigh, snapping his notebook shut. “We'll take him in, you won't press charges so the prosecutor will drop the case like a hot potato, then we'll release him and everything's back to normal except for all of the police time you've just wasted.”  
  
Ryan looked up to glare at the cop, but the man had already turned away, heading back toward the master bedroom where his partner had kept Jake sequestered.  
  
He crossed his arms over his stomach, tightening them until it was painful to breath, but he refused to obey the instinct to move back when they brought Jake out - calm and collected, lips set in a firm, determined line. He looked toward Dawn as the officers led him through the room, then shifted grey eyes onto Ryan and held there until he was out the door.  
  
“You have a good evening, ma'am,” the cop muttered on his way out.  
  
Ryan sat still until he heard the cruiser pull away from the kerb. Then he got up and shut the door, slamming the lock home with much more force than necessary, and pushing the chain into place after. He put his hands against the door, staring at it as if he could see through it.  
  
It wasn't meant to be like this.  
  
“I'm sorry, Ry. I couldn't do it.”  
  
His mind was eerily calm but he knew he wouldn't sleep tonight. Not with the promise in Jake's eyes burned into his brain. “He treated us like shit,” he croaked, finally finding his voice again. “Why couldn't you press charges? Get a restraining order or something.”  
  
“What good would that do? You think the cops even enforce those things?”  
  
He could hear her sniffing back tears as he stood in silence.  
  
“I know I shouldn't let them treat me like that . . .  _you_ like that. But I just can't do all this by myself, Ryan, I need someone.”  
  
_You've got me._  
  
He'd tried so hard, but it had never been enough. And now he had nothing left.  
  
Ryan traced the locks with his fingers, reassuring himself that the bolt was in place, the chain held fast. It didn't make him feel any better, but somehow he just needed to know they were there – that something, in all the shit that was his life, was doing what it was supposed to.  
  
“I'm so sorry, Ryan. I'll figure it all out, I promise. It'll all be okay.”  
  
He didn't have the energy to argue any longer. He had nothing.


	21. Chapter 21

**Newport,  
Fall 2003**

 

 

Ryan pushed the front door shut, leaning a hand on it until he felt the lock click home. The house was silent – Seth having been sent up to his room to complete his homework shortly after dinner. Ryan had used the convenient excuse of taking the trash out and had almost made it out of the house before Sandy had called after him to come to the family room when he was done.

No pool house until this conversation was over. The conversation he'd been desperately avoiding since the night of the locker-room brawl. It seemed like he couldn't avoid it any longer.

He took a deep breath and set his feet in motion, keeping his pace carefully steady even as Sandy and Kirsten came into view at the end of the hallway, looking somber and determined in a way that immediately set Ryan on edge. And Sandy's briefcase was out on the coffee table, one of the snaps already popped open.

This wasn't good.

Sandy and Kirsten were sitting apart on the sofa, leaving him the chair closest to the dining table with nothing blocking his escape.

Better than last time. But the presence of the briefcase was still unnerving him. It was too formal, too official, too out of place in that room.

Maybe the 911 thing had been the final straw. Maybe they wanted rid of him now.

“We were going to leave this until the morning,” Sandy said, once Ryan had taken his seat, “but I think we've already put this off for much too long.”

Kirsten was nodding, fingers twined together as she sat poker-straight with tension. Her eyes betrayed nervousness, anger, confusion . . . Ryan could only hope it wasn't all directed at him. She caught his look and her lips parted.

He found himself suddenly very afraid of what she would say.

“I'm sorry,” he blurted out, before she could speak. He shifted in the chair. “For everything. For the fight and taking off, and not doing my punishment.” Ryan ran a tongue across parched lips and looked up, still fidgeting. “I can make it up, I swear.”

“Oh, you will,” Sandy replied, “but that's not what we want to talk about.”

Ryan went still, bewilderment stalling his apprehensive motion. He searched Sandy's face for any clue as to the content of the upcoming conversation. Surely they wanted to talk about all the rules he'd broken, more punishment, how badly he'd endangered his probation and their guardianship? Surely they wanted to tell him how much he'd screwed up? But Sandy's face was disturbingly unreadable, and Kirsten was just uncomfortable, always.

“Um, I'm sorry about dinner,” Ryan tried again, “what Seth said about . . . I mean it wasn't like . . . I . . .” He dropped his head again, cursing himself for starting a sentence he couldn't finish. He could feel his neck starting to flush at his guardians' intense stares. Stupid to bring it up when he couldn't explain it. What was he supposed to say? 'I'm sorry for almost calling the cops on you'? 'My mistake, Sandy, I thought you were going to beat your wife'? Why would they want him in their house if he thought things like that about them?

“You were really worried that we were going to hurt each other,” Sandy said.

Yes.

“No.” Ryan shook his head, already knowing the pointlessness of denying the statement.

“You were afraid that after all this time, beginning to be the family that you wanted, we were going to turn out just like every other adult in your life.”

Yes.

“No, of course not.”

“And that's what this whole thing has been about,” Sandy pressed, leaning in almost unbearably close. His hand was resting on the arm of Ryan's chair and Ryan wanted to move backwards, to put some space between them, but he couldn't. It wasn't even Sandy he was afraid of at that moment. It was himself. Bearer of the Atwood Luck. It was hearing his fears expressed out loud, as if saying them would cause them to become true.

So much better to keep them locked inside, away from the light.

So much better to pretend that they weren't there at all.

Sandy heaved a deep sigh and moved towards his briefcase, unclipping the other side of it and flipping the lid up. “I went to see Caleb today,” he said, pulling out a thick green file folder.

Ryan couldn't stop himself from sending a desperate glance towards Kirsten. Her lips were pressed flat against each other now, that innocuous folder the object of her fury.

But what did Caleb have to with anything?

“I know I said I wouldn't mention it to Kirsten,” Sandy added, “but it turned out a lot more serious than I had anticipated. Caleb threatening people who are a threat to  _him_ isn't exactly new, and I could have lived with keeping that one incident from her. But not this,” he said, shaking his head. He held the folder out.

Sandy's gaze was frighteningly serious. Kirsten was smouldering, biting her bottom lip now as if to keep in troublesome words. And Ryan had to wonder when Sandy had told her about what was going on. Before their argument? While Ryan had been taking the trash out?

He sorely wished he'd had some forewarning, because he felt totally off guard not knowing what was coming.

He looked at the folder. It seemed harmless – a bare two inches of sharp white paper stuffed between the covers. There was nothing about it that seemed to earn the seething emotion in the room.

Ryan took it slowly, laid it on his knee, opened it.

The first page wasn't exactly shocking – it was his arrest record, fronted by a colour copy of his mugshot. His first thought was how unflattering the photo was. The flash had been intense, he recalled, and it had picked out every flaw in his skin and the dark bags under his eyes. He turned it over, coming upon his school record, then his social services information. Ryan skipped quickly past those few pages, feeling the thick edges of photographs stuffed between them. Then there were some pages about his mother, Trey, his father. Ryan flicked past those too. There was nothing there that he wouldn't expect Sandy to have – as his public defender and his legal guardian. It was galling that anyone had access to such personal information, but he knew it was bits and pieces at best. A smattering of painfully embarrassing snapshots of his past. But that was it.

Why had Sandy given him this?

“I don't get it,” he admitted, making to close the file again. “I already knew you had all this stuff.”

Sandy sighed again. And for this first time since Ryan had come into the room the man dropped his gaze, rubbing at his temple with his thumbs. “Not quite,” he answered, pretty cryptically. “As it turns out, Caleb has more favours to cash in than I realised.”

“This . . . this is Caleb's file?” Ryan whispered, looking down at his fingers as they held the page open at his father's arrest record. He turned the page and there was another limpid mugshot of a man Ryan barely recognised. Martin – Dawn's first attempt at replacing Ryan's father. Ryan didn't remember much about that time except the constant terror. He flipped some more, landing on familiar face after familiar face – every single one of them angry and frightening and carrying with them a whole slew of unwelcome memories.

Every single one of Dawn's boyfriends was in that file.

And not just rap sheets, but the police reports for every stop and search, every drunken bar fight, every response to domestic disturbance calls. Everything.

Ryan suddenly felt very, very sick.

Caleb must have read it all.

“Did you read it?” Ryan asked Sandy, unable to look up from the paper in front of him. All the worst things about his life, printed, photocopied and neatly collated. His head was swimming.

“No. I have some idea of what's in there, but I haven't read any of it. And that, by the way, is the only remaining copy, and tomorrow Kirsten is going to go and threaten to divorce him if he ever replaces it.”

“His behaviour is completely unacceptable, Ryan. And when I've finished with him he'll be in no doubt whatsoever of my opinion on the matter. Nothing like this will happen again. If I'd had any idea . . .”

Ryan carefully shut the folder, smoothing the cover under his palm. He could barely process anything past the feeling of total violation. Caleb knew  _everything_. The man despised him, and he had looked at all those pictures. The bastard knew about the worst of his scars. Knew about things that Trey didn't even know, things Ryan had never even mentioned to Theresa.

This sucked.

“Are you going to read it?” he asked.

“No. Not unless you give us permission, or something very serious happens and we feel that we have no choice.”

Ryan nodded. He wasn't sure what constituted 'very serious' in the Cohens' book, but at least it was an assurance of some sort, and more than he deserved right now.

But he wanted to tear it into a thousand pieces. And burn them. And then he wanted to get very, very drunk and pretend that he'd never seen it.

“But Ryan,” Sandy continued, “I hope that eventually you'll be able to tell us about some of the things that are in there.”

His stomach twisted. No.

“Why?” Ryan objected, the word emerging in a hissed breath. “It's done. It's over. It doesn't matter any more.”

“You really believe that?” Sandy challenged. “Is that why you ran away, because 'it's done'? Is that why you jeopardised the guardianship?” The tone wasn't harsh, even though the words were, and Ryan understood, despite his panic, that Sandy wasn't trying to cast blame. “Ryan, kid, it's time we all stopped pretending that what's in that file doesn't still affect you.”

There was a long silence in which Ryan didn't dare to look up. This conversation was turning out so much worse than he'd imagined.

More yelling he could have handled – it wasn't like he hadn't had enough practice. A laundry list of complaints and errors, sure. Extra chores, more grounding, community work, no problem. But never before had anyone sat him down to discuss a problem and ask him to tell them his feelings. Ryan wasn't at all sure that he was equipped to do that. Feelings had always been frowned upon in the Atwood house.

“Ryan, we need to know why you took off. Because none of us can afford for that to happen again. We're flying blind with you, kid. And as much as we love a challenge, and as much as you are well worth the effort, unless you give us a clue every now and then, we're just going to keep screwing it up.”

Kirsten had moved closer while Sandy had been talking, her anger with him apparently forgotten as she'd grabbed Sandy's hand in her own. And she looked so . . . concerned, like she had that night in the kitchen after the cop had brought him home.

Ryan couldn't believe no one was yelling at him.

He couldn't believe that they were blaming themselves for this.

Ryan smoothed the cover of the file again. It was all in there, freely available, and yet they were sat there, waiting for the one tiny fragment Ryan was willing to give them.

He owed them an explanation. After everything the Cohens had done for him, he owed them more than that. He owed them his trust, what little of it that he could give.

And he needed to start now, while they were laying the chance in front of him.

So he mentally braced himself, opened his mouth, and started to talk.

“That night,” he began, swallowing hard as his throat dried up, “when you came to talk to me about the fight, you asked me what I was thinking.” Ryan glanced up, squinting despite the dimness of the lights, to catch Sandy's eyes. “Before, back in Chino, whenever anyone asked for an explanation what they were really looking for was an excuse.” He stopped, watching Sandy's expression as the man read between the lines.

“An excuse,” Sandy repeated. “To hit you.”

Ryan heard Kirsten's sharp intake of breath, quickly hushed, and he didn't miss the tightening in Sandy's hand as he squeezed hers.

“It was always best . . . safest,” Ryan corrected, “to let it cool down for a couple of days, until they forgot how piss— sorry, how mad they were.”

Sandy just nodded, totally calm. Kirsten's discomfort was still making Ryan feel awkward, but it was nothing, really, compared to sitting through Sandy's outburst after the Child Services visit.

“I'll let you in on a little secret, kid,” Sandy said, lowering his voice a little as if it really was confidential. “Everyone loses their temper – that's human nature. But that doesn't mean that everyone hits.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan answered quietly, nodding.

He  _did_ know that. Most of the time. But when Sandy was yelling, and giving off  _that vibe -_ that simmering rage in the air that set off all of Ryan's alarm bells – then it was difficult to remember.

There was a big difference between knowing something intellectually and really, truly believing it.

But maybe he just needed to give the Cohens a chance to prove it. They'd given  _him_ more than enough, after all.

Sandy smiled and patted Ryan's knee, taking the file from him with the other and laying it on the coffee table. Ryan knew he hadn't swallowed the lie, but he was grateful the man didn't see a need to press the issue. “Next time something like this happens, can you please tell us what's going on in your head, so that we can help you? Or if you can't, and if you absolutely have to get out of here – take Seth; go the Crab Shack; spend the night at Marissa's. Just so long as we know you're somewhere safe, not sleeping under a pier or in an alley somewhere. Can you do that?”

There wasn't a single hint of anger left in Sandy's eyes now, no pity or embarrassment or regret; just an all-encompassing warmth and unconditional acceptance, and suddenly Ryan couldn't understand why he'd been so afraid of this conversation, of this man. And all of the week's anxiety and avoidance seemed so silly, no matter how angry Sandy had been at the time.

Maybe this talking stuff wasn't so bad after all.

And maybe this trusting stuff would work out okay, too.

“Do you think you can do that, Ryan?” Sandy asked again.

And this time Ryan managed a lopsided smile in return. “Yeah,” he said, “I think I can.”


	22. Epilogue

**Chino,  
** **Spring 2002**

 

The knife was heavier than the size suggested – fitting neatly along Ryan's palm, his thumb resting comfortably on the catch which released the blade. It was already covered in sweaty fingerprints from his repetitive, nervous handling.

This time Ryan wasn't going down without a fight.

The street was quiet – his neighbours lethargic and reclusive in the muggy afternoon heat. The air was still, breezeless, as if the world had sensed what was coming. As if it was holding its breath.

He knew something was wrong before he even opened the door.

Jake's car was not in the carport – the glass from the broken window spread in an untidy arc on the grass. Ryan's bike, still chained to the tree when he had left for school, was now unchained and dropped to the ground.

Ryan left his bag at the edge of the porch, just in case.

There was a change of clothes in it and a small wad of bills – smaller now that he'd paid out for the knife. But Ryan figured that the expense would be well worth it.

The door was unlocked.

Inside, Jake's collection of sports videos was missing from the cabinet and his spare pack of Virginia Slims was gone from the coffee table.

Ryan gripped the knife harder in his pocket. He couldn't think of any reason that Jake might clear out. Not without finishing what he'd started the night before. Maybe the man had just packed up all his stuff first, moved his car, so he could make a clean getaway.

Or maybe he'd already made his getaway.

“Mom?” he called, suddenly unnerved by the blank silence in the house.

_Please let her be at work, like she promised._

Footsteps from the hallway made him spin awkwardly, catching his knuckles against the dining table, knife slipping in a slick hand.

“Oh, hey Ry, is school done already?”

Ryan had to take a moment to catch his breath, heart shuddering wildly in his chest.

Dawn bustled in with a pile of clothes, barely sparing Ryan a glance as she passed him to stuff them in the washer. She shouldn't have been home, not for hours yet.

“Where's Jake?” Ryan asked, when he trusted his voice to stay steady. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, releasing his grip on the knife with regret. The pattern on its handle was imprinted on his palm and he rubbed at the mark with trembling fingers.

Dawn was wearing her waitressing uniform – a baby blue dress which made her skin seem sallow but brought out her eyes. And they were sparkling when she looked up at him, pushing the door of the washer shut. “Jake's gone. I told him to leave,” she said.

Just like that. As if it was that simple.

Last night when she'd told Jake to leave he'd beaten her down like a dog. The bruises were still there – irridescent blue and green, distorting her features. Ryan shrugged slightly, feeling the all-familiar twinge in his right shoulder.

How could Jake just be gone? He had been everything for too long. Dawn had  _allowed_  him to be everything for too long.

“You told him to go?” Ryan repeated, bewilderment sucking the tone from his words.

He felt like the ground had disappeared from beneath him, like the Earth had tilted on its axis and left him without directionality.

He had been awake all night, thinking, trying to come up with a way to escape the inevitable. In the end all Ryan could do was make sure he got home first. So he'd prepared himself.

And now Jake was gone, and suddenly Ryan didn't know what he was doing anymore.

“You were right,” Dawn continued, “I shouldn't let people treat us like that. That's it, Ry,” she said, nodding her head, “no more, I promise. From now on, I'm gonna have respect.”

And he wanted to believe her. But he couldn't. Not when he could still see the drops of dried blood on the threadbare carpet by the couch.

“You're proud of me, right Ryan?”

Ryan closed his eyes. His head was spinning.

It was always like this. Every time she got a new job, or quit drinking, it was 'I promise' and 'no more' and 'it'll be better this time'.

It'll be  _better_  this time. But it wasn't better. It was always worse. No matter how much she promised and how hard she tried. And he couldn't take it today.

“You're proud of me, aren't you, Ry?”

And Ryan opened his eyes. And she just looked so happy, so full of hope. And he couldn't be the one to ruin it, not this time. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I'm proud of you, Mom.”

Dawn grinned, brushed self-consciously at her hair. It sprung back up between her fingers - wild and untameable. “Well, I gotta be honest, kiddo – I didn't do it all by myself.”

Ryan's throat went dry and he swallowed, trying to lubricate enough that he could form words. “What do you mean?” he finally ground out, not bothering to duck his head and hide his anger, no longer concerned about ruining the mood. “What do you mean, Mom?”

“Well, there's this guy at work--”

“A guy?” Ryan spat. Because that would make everything better, wouldn't it? All of their problems could be solved by yet another man and his fists.

“Just a customer,” Dawn explained, her grin vanishing in favour of confusion and nervousness. She glanced back at the refrigerator and Ryan tensed.

Booze. That was the other cure-all.

But Dawn turned back, smoothing out her dress and shifting her mouth into a tight smile. “For a couple of months now we've been talking some when he comes in, so today we got to talking and I told him about Jake, and he . . . he offered to help.” She brightened suddenly, nervous energy returning. “Hey, you wanna meet him? He's a real nice guy. I think you'll really like him.”

Ryan highly doubted that.

“Now?” he questioned, choosing not to air that particular thought. “I'm kinda behind on my schoolwork.” And he was going to stay behind, too, since all he really wanted to do right now was sleep until the last two weeks disappeared.

Today especially. Today knowing that he would probably never see tomorrow. He didn't want to think about today ever again.

“It'll just be quick,” Dawn assured,” he's in the bedroom.”

Ryan blinked, waiting for his brain to catch up with that information. “He's only here a couple of hours and he's in your bed?”

Somewhere inside him was a tight ball of pent-up rage, carefully pushed down over years. He could feel it now, bubbling up, wanting escape. And even as he took a breath, squashed it again, Ryan could feel it seething – a tightness in his throat and the pulse of his temples. He didn't know how much longer he could live like this before something snapped, before he became rabid and bitter - a tool of his anger - just like Trey. Just like his father.

Dawn frowned at him. “He works nights, Ryan, and he came here just to help us out. And he was tired. What was I sposed to do, tell him to leave?”

“ _Yes_ , Mom! He's got his own bed.” Presumably. Not that Ryan could ever be sure with a lot of these guys, who were oh so happy to move in and oh so reluctant to help with any of the bills.

“What if he'd had an accident, huh?" Dawn snapped.  "He's only taking a nap. What does it hurt us to be nice?”

Ryan ground his jaw. Dawn's face looked like someone had used her as a human piñata, and she wanted to know what it could hurt.

“It's not like I'm going out with him or something,” she added defensively, “he was being friendly. So just drop the fucking attitude and be grateful,” she hissed, casting looks toward the bedroom wall, as if afraid of waking the man up.

Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets, felt the handle of the knife smack into his fingertips as he curled his hands into fists.

This guy was a damn fast worker. In Dawn's bed within a day. How long before they started 'dating' and he moved in? How long before the pretence at tolerance stopped and the hitting started? A week? Two? A month?

“I'm gonna go get him. You'd be better be nice to him, Ry.”

He turned his head away, concentrated on breathing as his mother walked away. Inhale. Exhale.

Not thinking about anger and betrayal.

Inhale.

Not thinking about hopelessness and despair.

Exhale.

“Ry.”

Ryan snapped his head toward her voice, shifting it up slightly so that he could study the man with hooded eyes as he stepped forward into the room.

Huge. Muscled. Tattooed.

Ryan felt his heart sink, drowning as the details filtered in.

Six foot. Built like a bear. Aztec gang tattoos swirling round biceps thicker than Ryan's thigh.

Inhale.

Not thinking about fists the size of plates and the double pin in the buckle of the man's belt.

Not thinking about fear and fear and  _fear_.

“Ryan, this is AJ.”


End file.
